In 2014 a series of articles were published in the Church Lawford and King’s Newnham Parish Newsletter reflecting the history of the two villages. These articles, written by Liz Parvin (King’s Newnham) and Keith Sinfield (Church Lawford) have been digitised and distributed throughout this archive depending on the period they cover.
Both Liz and Keith looked at the this period, starting with looking at how King’s Newnham was affected.
King’s Newnham 1066 to 1539
1066 was, of course, the date of the Norman invasion and subsequently the commissioning of the Domesday Book survey (subsequently completed in 1086) So there is a lot more historical information after that date. Keith and I have therefore decided to split Church Lawford and King’s Newnham for this period this month our notes are on King’s Newnham 1066 1539 and next month will cover Church Lawford for the same period.
The most obvious Norman artefact in the area is of course the Brinklow motte and bailey. This was constructed in the latter part of the 11th Century, probably by Roger de Mowbray, who held Brinklow at that time. However, it seems it was not occupied for long and was only ever constructed from wood because no stonework has ever been found. Nonetheless, Brinklow was probably a strategically important place (think of the excellent view of the surrounding countryside from the top of the castle mound) and we know that there was a market there from 1218. King’s Newnham is less than 2 miles away so it seems very likely that residents went to Brinklow market.
There is a good website on Brinklow castle at http:// www.brinklowvillage.co.uk/download/history/Castle.pdf and the author of that says:
‘The feudal system continued long after the conquest, and was very complex, largely a story of powerful warring barons, great absentee landowners, tenants-in-chief, and sub-tenants, and the rearranging of landholdings through political marriages and complicated bequests.’
This is certainly true of King’s Newnham, and also of Church Lawford as both passed from one owner to another many times. During the reign of Henry I (1100 1135), King’s Newnham was in the possession of Geoffrey de Clinton a great nobleman who was Chamberlain and Treasurer to the King and who owned extensive estates in this area. In 1119 he founded the Abbey at Kenilworth and gave the monks the Manor land at King’s Newnham. Henry II, grandson of Henry I, confirmed the grant to the monks, along with the right to hold a court leet (a type of medieval court). This granting of royal privileges is said by some to be the reason why ‘Newnham’ became ‘Newnham Regis’ (now of course ‘King’s Newnham’) although different sources quote other, different, reasons!
St. Laurence’s Church was built in the late 12th century and the fishponds were built to provide the monks with their fish (most likely carp). There is a spring in the top pond; that drains into the middle one and that again drains into the lowest one. I am told that there is a plug in the lowest one that can be removed to allow the water to drain down into the river below, leaving the fish to be collected for 16 century so that could be before or after the dissolution of the monasteries around 1539 (see here for further discussion in a later article),
So it seems there was a community of monks living and farming here for much of this medieval period. The WCC record claims that there is evidence of a medieval settlement in the field above the fishponds and also of buildings in the area around the church tower. In 1291, the estate included ‘4 plough-lands worth £6, a mill worth £1 13s. 4d’ (this must be the mill on the River Avon), and is noted as having ‘rents, etc., producing £3 12s. 9d., and stock valued at £2’.
By 1525 the value had increased a little because it is known that ‘the monastic property was leased for 51 years by William Wall, the abbot, to George Dawes and Katherine his wife, for £17 2s yearly for the site of the manor, the demesnes, the pasture called Cathiron, four closes and crofts; 60s. for the ‘Mylehowse’ (i.e. mill house) and mill, the Holme and fishing rights, and £4 for the grain tithe’. This must have been quite an extensive piece of land if it went as far as Cathiron. In 1535 the total value, including the rectory (£4), was £47 1s. It is interesting to speculate why the monastic land was leased to William Wall in 1525 had the monks already ceased to live here then? As we know the 1530’s were turbulent times for any monastic settlement as Henry VIII separated the English church from the Roman Catholic Church so that he could marry Anne Boleyn. But more of that in the next instalment of King’s Newnham history – here.
Liz Parvin
1 From: Parishes; Newnham Regis’. A History of the County of Warwick Volume 6. Knightlow Hundred https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol6/pp193-194
Date accessed: 21st April 2014.
’From: ‘Parishes: Newnham Regis’, A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 6: Knightlow hundred (1951), pp. 193-194. URL: http:// www.british-history.ac.uk/report aspx?compid-57125 Date accessed: 21 April 2014.
Keith Sinfield then looked at Church Lawford in the same period.
Church Lawford, 1066-1539.
Following last month’s piece by Liz Parvin on King’s Newnham in the years 1066 to 1539, we will now see what was happening in Church Lawford in the same period
The Domesday Survey of the entire population, their lands and property, for tax purposes, reveals that within twenty years of the conquest the English ruling class had been almost entirely dispossessed and replaced by Norman landholders. Under the ‘previous administration’ a system of taxation known as Danegeld was in force basically a protection racket in which money was raised to buy off invading Vikings! The associated Danegeld documentation, though, could not have borne any comparison with the Domesday Survey, which has given us a wealth of information on the period.
In 1086 Church Lawford Manor was a 5-hide unit held by Rainaid de Bailleul on behalf of Earl Roger of Shrewsbury (hide: originally an Anglo Saxon unit defining the land needed to support a peasant and his household). The total number of inhabitants was 31, made up of various strata of society. In the period after the Conquest it is interesting to see the use of the French language in the naming of families in the area, e g. de Newenham (of Newnham) and de Lalleford (of Lawford).
The history of the parish is bound up in its associations with the various monastic establishments, until their dissolution in 1539. A post (wind) mill of the medieval period, sited on Lawford Heath, is thought to have belonged to Pipewell Abbey in Northamptonshire; the priory of the Holy Sepulchre, Warwick, held one-and-half virgates of land in the parish ( virgate. equivalent to 30 acres); Combe Abbey enjoyed the use of land here the benefactors, Roger Heyrun and his wife Agnes were both buried in the abbey It is likely that the monasteries acted as tenants-in-chief, using land or property granted to them by sub-letting to tenant farmers to receive produce and/or rents to help in the maintenance of their orders So far as the tending of land is concerned, a number of sites throughout the parish have been found where the medieval ‘ridge-and-furrow’ method of arable cultivation was practised (Ref 1).
As to where the medieval settlement of Church Lawford was located, two sites have been identified: one north of Church Road, and the other close to the present church (Ref. 1). Whilst on the subject, the original church of St Peter was founded sometime between 1086 and 1094 both this and the church in Wolston being granted to the Norman abbey of St. Pierre-sur-Dives by Hugh Baldran and his wife Aeliz. Evidence for the site of a medieval chapel has been found approximately 500m south of Fulham Wood. This chapel is referred to in Ref. 2 as follows: ‘The only known evidence for the alleged chapel of Stude seems to be the occurrence of “William son of the chaplain of Stude”, accused of homicide at Lawford in 1232, (fn. 53) and the statement in 1276 that William Bagod when sheriff (1271) caused 20 sheep, worth 20s. to be taken from the chaplain of Stade (sic) for the king’s service and paid nothing for them.’
Make of this what you will summary justice?
Keith Sinfield
(1). ‘Take the Timetrail with Warwickshire Museum’ http://timetrail.warwickshire.gov.uk/searchSimple.aspx – search for Church Lawford.
(2). A History of the County of Warwick: Vol. 6: Knightlow hundred, ‘Parishes: Church Lawford’, A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 6: Knightlow hundred (1951), pp. 147-149. https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol6/pp147-149
Date accessed: 11 May 2014.
For details of the hundreds of Warwickshire consult British History Online at https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol3/pp1-4
Maps showing the Stude are also contained in this archive here.