James church in Drayton. In 1086 the manor of Easton, which included the greater part of Bringhurst parish, belonged to the Abbey of Peterborough. The only portions of Bringhurst parish not controlled by the abbey were Drayton and the lost medieval village of Prestgrave. Land in these places, which was omitted from the Domesday Survey, came under the lordship of the Bassets of Weldon (Northants). At the time of the 1381 poll tax 133 persons were listed in Easton, 43 in Drayton, 26 in Bringhurst, an order of size that has since been maintained. In 1563 there were 70 households in Easton and 21 in Bringhurst and Drayton combined. At the 2011 Census, Drayton had 68 households and a population of 190. Conservation area Drayton is one of 62 conservation areas within the Harborough District of Leicestershire. The Conservation Area embraces the area of the village around the village green together with the older part of the village along the road to Great Easton. Blocks of later development on the Great Easton Road and the Nevill Holt Road are excluded as the style of buildings does not contribute to the traditional feel of the village. The Conservation Area includes the traditional and newer buildings around the green and along Hall Lane and the main street towards Great Easton. Visually the most dominant part of the Conservation Area is around the open space of the village green which gives cohesion to the settlement. From the Medbourne Road the entrance to this open area is sudden and is firmly defined by a former farmhouse and its agricultural buildings. These extend partially along one side of the triangular Green. Open roads run on each of the three sides of the green in whose centre is the tiny single-cell Church of St James. Church of St James The church of St James stands on the green in Drayton and was listed as being Grade II on 7 December 1966. It is a single room built of stone and roofed with slate, constructed on the site of the former chapel which fell out of religious use in the 18th century and had been converted into a bake-house by 1794. In 1878, George Lewis Watson of Rockingham Castle bought the building and proceeded to remodel it throughout 1878-79 into a mission church. The door is in the centre of the south side; the east end has