Aston Cantlow is a village in

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Av ...

, England, on the

River Alne The River Alne is a tributary of the Arrow and has its headwaters to the north of Wootton Wawen. Course Its source is at Pink Green (just inside Worcestershire) near Wood End; it then flows east into Warwickshire, close to Tanworth-in-Arden ...

north-west of Stratford-upon-Avon and north-west of

Wilmcote Wilmcote is a village, and since 2004 a separate civil parish, in the English county of Warwickshire, about north of Stratford-upon-Avon. Prior to 2004, it was part of the same parish as Aston Cantlow, and the 2001 population for the whole are ...

, close to Little Alnoe,

Shelfield Shelfield is a suburb of Aldridge and Pelsall in the borough of Walsall in the West Midlands, England. It is conjoined by the nearby suburbs of Walsall Wood and Rushall. The name Shelfield derives from the Anglo Saxon ''Skelfeld'' for sloping g ...

, and Newnham.'Aston Cantlow', A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 3: Barlichway hundred (1945), pp. 31–42. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=56977 It was the home of Mary Arden,

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

's mother. At the 2001 census, it had a population of 1,674, being measured again as 437 at the 2011 Census.

History

Prior to the

Norman conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conque ...

in 1066, the manor of Aston was held by Earl Ælfgar, son of Earl Leofric who had died in 1057, and the husband of

Lady Godiva Lady Godiva (; died between 1066 and 1086), in Old English , was a late Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who is relatively well documented as the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and a patron of various churches and monasteries. Today, she is mainly re ...

Osbern fitzRichard Osbern fitzRichard (sometimes Osbern fitz Richard Scrob;Baxter ''Earls of Mercia'' p. 122 died after 1088) was a Frenchman, perhaps Norman, who was a landowner and tenant-in-chief in England. Osbern served as a royal judge and sided with the baroni ...

, son of Richard Scrob, builder of

Richard's Castle Richard's Castle is a village, castle and two civil parishes on the border of the counties of Herefordshire and Shropshire in England. The Herefordshire section of the parish had a population of 250 at the 2011 Census. The Shropshire section ...

, was the holder in 1086 as the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

records:

In Ferncombe
Hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to de ...
, Osbern son of Richard holds (Estone) Aston from the King. 5 hides. Land for 10 ploughs. 9 Flemings and 16 villagers with a priest and 10 small holders who have 12 ploughs. A mill at 8s and 5 sticks of eels; meadow, 40 acres; woodland 1 league in length and width. The value was 100s now £6. Earl Ælfgar held it.

died in 1137 and by 1169 the manor had passed to William the

Chamberlain Chamberlain may refer to: Profession *Chamberlain (office), the officer in charge of managing the household of a sovereign or other noble figure People *Chamberlain (surname) **Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855–1927), German-British philosop ...

of Tankervill, who, by an undated grant gave all the land, between the

river Alne The River Alne is a tributary of the Arrow and has its headwaters to the north of Wootton Wawen. Course Its source is at Pink Green (just inside Worcestershire) near Wood End; it then flows east into Warwickshire, close to Tanworth-in-Arden ...

and his manor of Estone to

Winchcombe Abbey Winchcombe Abbey is a now-vanished Benedictine abbey in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire; this abbey was once in the heart of Mercia, an Anglo Saxon kingdom at the time of the Heptarchy in England. The Abbey was founded c. 798 for three hundred Benedi ...

. This was on condition that it should remain uncultivated and that his men should enjoy the same common rights there as they had on the rest of his land. He was still holding the manor in 1177 and may have been succeeded by Ralph de Tankervill, who is referred to fifty years later as having formerly possessed it. It ultimately

escheat Escheat is a common law doctrine that transfers the real property of a person who has died without heirs to the crown or state. It serves to ensure that property is not left in "limbo" without recognized ownership. It originally applied to a ...

ed to

the Crown The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has different ...

Sanders, I.J. English Baronies, Oxford, 1960, Eaton Bray, note 9, pp.39–40 and in 1204 King John (1199–1216) granted it to

William I de Cantilupe William I de Cantilupe (c. 1159 - 7 April 1239) (anciently ''Cantelow, Cantelou, Canteloupe, etc.'', Latinised to ''de Cantilupo'') 1st feudal baron of Eaton (Bray) in Bedfordshire, England, was an Anglo-Norman royal administrator who served ...

(died 1239), from whose family the village takes its name. William's family name was added to the name of the manor of Aston, probably to differentiate it from another of the same name, in one of its many anciently-spelled varieties, ''Cantlow''.

served King John as Justiciar and Steward of the Household, served several times as High Sheriff of

, and from 1215 to 1223 was Governor of

Kenilworth Castle Kenilworth Castle is a castle in the town of Kenilworth in Warwickshire, England managed by English Heritage; much of it is still in ruins. The castle was founded during the Norman conquest of England; with development through to the Tudor pe ...

. He attained the status of an

English feudal barony In the kingdom of England, a feudal barony or barony by tenure was the highest degree of feudal land tenure, namely ''per baroniam'' (Latin for "by barony"), under which the land-holder owed the service of being one of the king's barons. The ...

, his barony, of which Aston became a member, having its baronial seat or ''

caput Latin words and phrases {{Short pages monitor