Over the years various local directories have summarised the history of the two villages. This is an example of such an entry, from Kellys Directory of 1922, which gives a potted view of village history as seen at that time, along with details of the various charities.
CHURCH LAWFORD, in Domesday “Leileford,” is a pleasant village and parish on the Avon, 4 miles west from Rugby station in the Rugby division of the county, Rugby division of Knightlow hundred, petty sessional division, union, county court district and rural deanery of Rugby, archdeaconry and diocese of Coventry.
The Birmingham branch of the London, Midland and Scottish railway runs through the parish in a deep cutting.
The church of St. Peter, originally in the patronage of the Abbot and Convent of St. Mary at St. Peter’s-super-Dinam in France, and afterwards given to a Carthusian house near Coventry, is an edifice of stone in the Late Decorated style, consisting of chancel, clerestoried nave of five bays, aisles, north porch and an embattled western tower containing a clock and 4 bells: the church was rebuilt in 1873-4 at a cost of £5,388, of which nearly £3,000 was contributed by the 6th Duke of Buccleuch K.G.: the stained east window was erected in 1887, and there is a memorial window to George. Worth, d. 1864, and Ann, his wife, d. 1871: the church affords 300 sittings.
The register, incorporating that of Newnham Regis, dates from August 30, 1575. The living is a rectory, with the vicarage of Kings Newnham annexed, joint net yearly value £300, including 71 acres of glebe, with residence, in the gift of the Bishop of Coventry, and held since 1921 by the Rev. Maitland Arthur Shorland M.A. of Wadham College, Oxford.
There is a reading room for adults. In the village is a stone obelisk, erected as a memorial to the men connected with the parish who fell in the Great War, 1914-18. Croft’s charity of £21 yearly, left in 1844, is partly for blankets and partly for the maintenance of the school; the Rev. R. Edmonds, a former rector, left in 1863 £16 per annum for the benefit of the poor, and Miss Marriott, in 1860, left £2 per annum for school purposes. Mr Thomas Chalmers is the chief landowner. Excavations here have at different times brought to light many bones of elephants, the rhinoceros and hyena, buried in the diluvial deposit, The soil is various; subsoil, limestone and clay. The chief crops are wheat, barley and oats. The area is 1,820 acres of land and 9 of water; rateable value, £3,774; the population in 1921 was 271.
Verger, Alfred Day.
Post Office. – Walter Wright, sub-postmaster.
Letters received through Rugby. Long Lawford is the nearest money order & Wolston, 3 miles distant, the nearest telegraph office.
Church of England School (mixed), built in 1849, with master’s house, by Lord John Douglas Scott, who died January 3. 1860, and now supported by the trustees of the church, for 90 children; Miss Florence Craven, mistress.