Leaveland comes from the Old English ‘land’ meaning ‘land, an estate’ combined with
a warlord’s name; therefore, ‘Leofa’s land’. The Domesday Book records Leaveland
as Levelant.
Leaveland parish church is a Grade: II listed building, dedicated to Saint Lawrence.
The Normans built the church early in the 13th century, with the consecration taking
place in 1222. In 1798, Edward Hasted described St Lawrence’s church as a ‘small
mean building, consisting of one isle and a chancel, with a low pointed wooden turrent
on it’. The Victorians restored the church in the 18th century with the vestry added
in 1882.
