Austrey
Encyclopedia
Austrey is a village and civil parish in the North Warwickshire
district of Warwickshire
, England
. The village is at the northern extremity of the county, near Newton Regis
and No Man's Heath
, and close to the Leicestershire
villages of Appleby Magna
, Norton-juxta-Twycross and Orton on the Hill
.
The village was sometimes spelt 'Alestry'.
Austrey formed part of a great block of seventy or eighty midland vills belonging to Wulfric Spot
, the Mercian nobleman who founded Burton Abbey. In Wulfric Spot’s will of 1004 Wulfric left Austrey "as it now stands with meat and with men", to one of his thegn
s who later transferred this part of the vill
to the abbey.
After the Norman conquest of England
the abbot was forced to share suzertainty with Nigel d'Aubigny, one of the Conqueror's trusted retinue, who was given lands in the parish as part of the spoils of the English defeat. Although he retained two and a half hides
in Austrey, the abbot was no longer the principal landowner in the parish. Domesday Book
of 1086 records 42 inhabitants in the town.
The monks of Burton took advantage of rising wool prices in the medieval period to sublet their estates for sheep walks. Aubigny lands reverted back to Burton Abbey.
In 1538 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries
the Abbey surrendered its lands to the Crown
. In 1541 the abbey was refounded as a collegiate church and Austrey manor was restored to it. However, in 1545 the collegiate church was dissolved and in 1546 the Crown granted Austrey manor to Sir William Paget
. His son Henry Paget
inherited Austrey manor in 1563 and still owned it in 1587.
Thereafter the manor was divided into freehold farms that were sold to the wealthier tenants. One of the Austrey manors came into the possession of the Kendalls of Smithsby through marriage with one of Henry Alstre’s co-heiresses in 1433. The Kendalls were well-established in Austrey by 1550 and they continued to consolidate their position after this date. The other Austrey manor held by Sir Walter Aston was broken up and divided among his tenants in the early 17th century.
By the Tudor period
the village was divided into two separate parts: the original settlement cluster around the church and market cross at Over End and a later extension at Nether End.
The Kendalls, hereditary lords of the manor, declared support for Parliament at the outbreak of the Civil War and became involved with conventicle
s and dissent in the latter half of the 17th century. Henry Kendall was governor of the parliamentary garrison at Maxstoke
from March 1644 to October 1645. The parish provided free quartering for a considerable force of parliamentarians commanded by Colonel Drummond and Sir Thomas Fairfax
in 1646.
by 1155. The oldest part of the present Church of England parish church
of Saint Nicholas
is the Early English Gothic tower, which was built in the middle of the 13th century. The remainder of the church was rebuilt early in the 14th century in the Decorated Gothic style. The nave
has a clerestory
and is flanked by north and south aisles, each of four bays
. The Gothic Revival architect
Ewan Christian
restored the chancel
with new windows in 1844-45.
The bell-tower has a ring
of five bells. Three including the tenor were cast by Hugh Watts II of Leicester in 1632. Another was cast by Thomas Rudhall of Gloucester
in 1770. The treble was recast by James Barwell of Birmingham in 1911 from another 1632 bell by Hugh Watts.
The original church had a leaded roof with castellated wall. Drawings of the church in the pre-Victorian format are held by Birmingham Central Library. In the Victorian era the current pitched roof replaced the original and the porch was added.
St. Nicholas' parish is now part of the Benefice of All Saints, North Warwickshire along with the parishes of Newton Regis
, Seckington
, Shuttington
and Warton
.
in Tudor times is a partial list of the Austrey copyhold
ers with the number of virgate
s held by each from a surviving manor court roll. All but two of the twelve tenants listed on the demesne in 1546 held a single virgate; one (Richard Cryspe) had a quarter and the other (Elizabeth Clerke) two virgates. Most of these family names are listed in the 17th century attached to Austrey farmers or craftsmen paying for a single hearth in the hearth tax returns.
The two ends of the village had separate water treatment reed beds on the streams just outside the village - the area behind the current sewage pumping system at the South West corner of the village is still owned by Severn Trent Water.
The parish has a Church of England
primary school and a bus link to the local secondary school in Polesworth
.
Austrey was judged Warwickshire's Calor Village of the Year in September 2008.
North Warwickshire
North Warwickshire is a local government district and borough in Warwickshire, England. The main town in the district is Atherstone where the council is based...
district of Warwickshire
Warwickshire
Warwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. The village is at the northern extremity of the county, near Newton Regis
Newton Regis
Newton Regis is a village and civil parish in the North Warwickshire district of Warwickshire, England. It has a population of about 700 .-Education:...
and No Man's Heath
No Man's Heath (four counties)
No Man's Heath is an area six miles north-east of Tamworth, Staffordshire. Its name indicates that it is on high heathland near the borders of four English counties: Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire and Staffordshire. The place is probably a highpoint on an ancient road, either Roman or...
, and close to the Leicestershire
Leicestershire
Leicestershire is a landlocked county in the English Midlands. It takes its name from the heavily populated City of Leicester, traditionally its administrative centre, although the City of Leicester unitary authority is today administered separately from the rest of Leicestershire...
villages of Appleby Magna
Appleby Magna
Appleby Magna is a village and civil parish in the district of North West Leicestershire, England.The civil parish, as well as Appleby Magna, includes the small Hamlet of Appleby Parva and the Villages of Norton-Juxta-Twycross, Snarestone and Swepstone...
, Norton-juxta-Twycross and Orton on the Hill
Orton on the Hill
Orton on the Hill is a hamlet forming part of the Twycross civil parish in the Hinckley and Bosworth district of Leicestershire, England. It is furthermore located in the Sparkenhoe Hundred. The name is derived from its high situation on a hill overlooking four counties,...
.
The village was sometimes spelt 'Alestry'.
Origins of the parish
In the Saxon eraHistory of Anglo-Saxon England
Anglo-Saxon England refers to the period of the history of that part of Britain, that became known as England, lasting from the end of Roman occupation and establishment of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the 5th century until the Norman conquest of England in 1066 by William the Conqueror...
Austrey formed part of a great block of seventy or eighty midland vills belonging to Wulfric Spot
Wulfric Spot
Wulfric , called Wulfric Spot or Spott, was an Anglo-Saxon nobleman. His will is an important document from the reign of King Æthelred the Unready...
, the Mercian nobleman who founded Burton Abbey. In Wulfric Spot’s will of 1004 Wulfric left Austrey "as it now stands with meat and with men", to one of his thegn
Thegn
The term thegn , from OE þegn, ðegn "servant, attendant, retainer", is commonly used to describe either an aristocratic retainer of a king or nobleman in Anglo-Saxon England, or as a class term, the majority of the aristocracy below the ranks of ealdormen and high-reeves...
s who later transferred this part of the vill
Vill
Vill is a term used in English history to describe a land unit which might otherwise be described as a parish, manor or tithing.The term is used in the period immediately after the Norman conquest and into the late medieval. Land units in Domesday are frequently referred to as vills, although the...
to the abbey.
After the Norman conquest of England
Norman conquest of England
The Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...
the abbot was forced to share suzertainty with Nigel d'Aubigny, one of the Conqueror's trusted retinue, who was given lands in the parish as part of the spoils of the English defeat. Although he retained two and a half hides
Hide (unit)
The hide was originally an amount of land sufficient to support a household, but later in Anglo-Saxon England became a unit used in assessing land for liability to "geld", or land tax. The geld would be collected at a stated rate per hide...
in Austrey, the abbot was no longer the principal landowner in the parish. Domesday Book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
of 1086 records 42 inhabitants in the town.
The monks of Burton took advantage of rising wool prices in the medieval period to sublet their estates for sheep walks. Aubigny lands reverted back to Burton Abbey.
In 1538 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...
the Abbey surrendered its lands to the Crown
The Crown
The Crown is a corporation sole that in the Commonwealth realms and any provincial or state sub-divisions thereof represents the legal embodiment of governance, whether executive, legislative, or judicial...
. In 1541 the abbey was refounded as a collegiate church and Austrey manor was restored to it. However, in 1545 the collegiate church was dissolved and in 1546 the Crown granted Austrey manor to Sir William Paget
William Paget, 1st Baron Paget
William Paget, 1st Baron Paget of Beaudesert , was an English statesman and accountant who held prominent positions in the service of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I.-Early life:...
. His son Henry Paget
Henry Paget, 2nd Baron Paget
Henry Paget, 2nd Baron Paget was an English MP and peer.He was the son of William Paget, 1st Baron Paget of Beaudesert, Staffordshire and his wife Anne Preston. He was knighted in 1553 and succeeded to the title Baron Paget in 1563 on the death of his father.He was elected as Member of Parliament...
inherited Austrey manor in 1563 and still owned it in 1587.
Thereafter the manor was divided into freehold farms that were sold to the wealthier tenants. One of the Austrey manors came into the possession of the Kendalls of Smithsby through marriage with one of Henry Alstre’s co-heiresses in 1433. The Kendalls were well-established in Austrey by 1550 and they continued to consolidate their position after this date. The other Austrey manor held by Sir Walter Aston was broken up and divided among his tenants in the early 17th century.
By the Tudor period
Tudor period
The Tudor period usually refers to the period between 1485 and 1603, specifically in relation to the history of England. This coincides with the rule of the Tudor dynasty in England whose first monarch was Henry VII...
the village was divided into two separate parts: the original settlement cluster around the church and market cross at Over End and a later extension at Nether End.
The Kendalls, hereditary lords of the manor, declared support for Parliament at the outbreak of the Civil War and became involved with conventicle
Conventicle
A conventicle is a small, unofficial and unofficiated meeting of laypeople, to discuss religious issues in a non-threatening, intimate manner. Philipp Jakob Spener called for such associations in his Pia Desideria, and they were the foundation of the German Evangelical Lutheran Pietist movement...
s and dissent in the latter half of the 17th century. Henry Kendall was governor of the parliamentary garrison at Maxstoke
Maxstoke
Maxstoke is a hamlet in the North Warwickshire district of the county of Warwickshire, England.-Maxstoke:Maxstoke is a small residential area.In the fields around the priory can be seen traces of medieval earthworks for fish farming and water control....
from March 1644 to October 1645. The parish provided free quartering for a considerable force of parliamentarians commanded by Colonel Drummond and Sir Thomas Fairfax
Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron
Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron was a general and parliamentary commander-in-chief during the English Civil War...
in 1646.
Parish church
Austrey had a parish churchParish church
A parish church , in Christianity, is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches....
by 1155. The oldest part of the present Church of England parish church
Church of England parish church
A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative region, known as a parish.-Parishes in England:...
of Saint Nicholas
Saint Nicholas
Saint Nicholas , also called Nikolaos of Myra, was a historic 4th-century saint and Greek Bishop of Myra . Because of the many miracles attributed to his intercession, he is also known as Nikolaos the Wonderworker...
is the Early English Gothic tower, which was built in the middle of the 13th century. The remainder of the church was rebuilt early in the 14th century in the Decorated Gothic style. The nave
Nave
In Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar, the main body of the church. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...
has a clerestory
Clerestory
Clerestory is an architectural term that historically denoted an upper level of a Roman basilica or of the nave of a Romanesque or Gothic church, the walls of which rise above the rooflines of the lower aisles and are pierced with windows. In modern usage, clerestory refers to any high windows...
and is flanked by north and south aisles, each of four bays
Bay (architecture)
A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...
. The Gothic Revival architect
Gothic Revival architecture
The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...
Ewan Christian
Ewan Christian
Ewan Christian was a British architect. He is most notable for the restoration of Carlisle Cathedral, the alterations to Christ Church, Spitalfields in 1866, and the extension to the National Gallery that created the National Portrait Gallery. He was architect to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners...
restored the chancel
Chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar in the sanctuary at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building...
with new windows in 1844-45.
The bell-tower has a ring
Change ringing
Change ringing is the art of ringing a set of tuned bells in a series of mathematical patterns called "changes". It differs from many other forms of campanology in that no attempt is made to produce a conventional melody....
of five bells. Three including the tenor were cast by Hugh Watts II of Leicester in 1632. Another was cast by Thomas Rudhall of Gloucester
Gloucester
Gloucester is a city, district and county town of Gloucestershire in the South West region of England. Gloucester lies close to the Welsh border, and on the River Severn, approximately north-east of Bristol, and south-southwest of Birmingham....
in 1770. The treble was recast by James Barwell of Birmingham in 1911 from another 1632 bell by Hugh Watts.
The original church had a leaded roof with castellated wall. Drawings of the church in the pre-Victorian format are held by Birmingham Central Library. In the Victorian era the current pitched roof replaced the original and the porch was added.
St. Nicholas' parish is now part of the Benefice of All Saints, North Warwickshire along with the parishes of Newton Regis
Newton Regis
Newton Regis is a village and civil parish in the North Warwickshire district of Warwickshire, England. It has a population of about 700 .-Education:...
, Seckington
Seckington
Seckington is a village and civil parish located near the B5493 road in the North Warwickshire district, in the county of Warwickshire, England. Seckington has a church called All Saints Church, Seckington and a castle called Seckington Castle. Seckington was recorded in the Domesday Book as...
, Shuttington
Shuttington
Shuttington is a village and civil parish in North Warwickshire, England, situated north-east of Tamworth, Staffordshire. In the 2001 census, the parish, which also includes Alvecote, had a population of 563....
and Warton
Warton, Warwickshire
Warton is a village in the North Warwickshire district of Warwickshire, United Kingdom. It is five miles east of Tamworth and four miles north-west of Atherstone, and is in the civil parish of Polesworth....
.
Settlement
The line of earthworks below the church in the area known as the Bishop's Field are part of a complex of water management ducts and ponds with this area used as water meadows. A quote from George Barwell of Shuttington in 1790 :- “in the parish of Austrey where he was born it has been the custom ever since he can remember (sixty years) to throw the rich waters which are collected in rainy seasons on the common fields lying on the side of the hill above the village, over the meadows which are below it, by means of floodgates and floating trenches.” Also in the Bishops Field is a natural spring known as the holy well. The new settlement at the Nether End probably originated with Earl Leofric's original grant to Burton Abbey, which would account for the siting of the monks' farmstead at nearby Bishop's Farm. The medieval pattern of settlement was scythe-shaped with tenements lining the main street running roughly parallel to the ridgeway from Orton to No man's heath. The earliest record of the customary tenants on Sir William Paget’s demesneDemesne
In the feudal system the demesne was all the land, not necessarily all contiguous to the manor house, which was retained by a lord of the manor for his own use and support, under his own management, as distinguished from land sub-enfeoffed by him to others as sub-tenants...
in Tudor times is a partial list of the Austrey copyhold
Copyhold
At its origin in medieval England, copyhold tenure was tenure of land according to the custom of the manor, the "title deeds" being a copy of the record of the manorial court....
ers with the number of virgate
Virgate
The virgate or yardland was a unit of land area measurement used in medieval England, typically outside the Danelaw, and was held to be the amount of land that a team of two oxen could plough in a single annual season. It was equivalent to a quarter of a hide, so was nominally thirty acres...
s held by each from a surviving manor court roll. All but two of the twelve tenants listed on the demesne in 1546 held a single virgate; one (Richard Cryspe) had a quarter and the other (Elizabeth Clerke) two virgates. Most of these family names are listed in the 17th century attached to Austrey farmers or craftsmen paying for a single hearth in the hearth tax returns.
The two ends of the village had separate water treatment reed beds on the streams just outside the village - the area behind the current sewage pumping system at the South West corner of the village is still owned by Severn Trent Water.
The parish has a Church of England
Voluntary controlled school
A voluntary controlled school is a state-funded school in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in which a foundation or trust has some formal influence in the running of the school...
primary school and a bus link to the local secondary school in Polesworth
Polesworth
Polesworth is a large village and civil parish in the North Warwickshire district of Warwickshire, England. In the 2001 census it had a population of 8,439, inclusive of the continuous sub-villages of St Helena, Dordon and Hall End directly to the south...
.
Austrey was judged Warwickshire's Calor Village of the Year in September 2008.