Photo Peter Patilla 2010
Photo Roger Phipp 2013
Thomas Lord Beler of Kirby Bellers, Leicestershire acquired the Manor of Crich in 1324. However, Thomas, 1st Baron Beler of Crich got little out of it, as he was murdered in the following year. His son Roger, 2nd Baron Beler, is of much more importance to Crich.
He built a Manor House where the Baptist Chapel now stands, most of it of course destroyed, but there still remain some parts of an ancient house behind Victoria House and the Loaf bakery. There is the ruins of what some think of as Roger’s Watch Tower. It is still there at the highest point of the garden looking over towards Wingfield Manor.
Roger Belers also enclosed a Park which covered Plaistow Green and the land down to Culland (known in later times as Culland Park), the eastern boundary presumably being the ridge from Edge Moor to Parkhead.
Source: A. B. Watkins "The Manor of Crich"
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