The leaning tower of Barcheston - geograph

Barcheston is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

in the

Stratford-on-Avon Stratford-upon-Avon (), commonly known as just Stratford, is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon district, in the county of Warwickshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It is situated on the River Avon, north-wes ...

district of

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-Avon an ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The village is on the east bank of the River Stour, opposite

Shipston-on-Stour Shipston-on-Stour is a town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon District in Warwickshire, England. It is located on the banks of the River Stour, south-southeast of Stratford-upon-Avon, 10 miles (16 km) north-northwest of Chipping Norto ...

. It shares a parish council with Willington. The

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

, administered at its lowest level by the Barcheston and Willington

Parish Meeting A parish meeting, in England, is a meeting to which all the electors in a civil parish are entitled to attend. In some cases, where a parish or group of parishes has fewer than 200 electors, the parish meeting can take on the role of a parish cou ...

, is in the Ettington ward of the district council. According to the 2001 Census the parishes population was 134, increasing to 141 at the 2011 Census.

Ralph Ardern Ralph Ardern, or Ralph de Ardern (c. 1374 – c. 1420), was Member of Parliament for Worcestershire from March 1406. He was the son of Henry de Ardern who had previously held the seat in November 1381. He died sometime before 28 October 1420.Driv ...

inherited the manor of Barcheston between 1382 (the death of his father,

Henry de Ardern Henry de Ardern, or Henry Ardern, was a Member of Parliament for Warwickshire in 1377 and again in 1380, and for Worcestershire from November 1381. In 1373 Henry bought Park Hall, near Castle Bromwich, from Sir John Botetourt.Driver, J. T. ''Wo ...

) and 1408 (the death of his mother). Whether or not he was ever resident is unknown. The first English

tapestry Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike most woven textiles, where both the warp and the weft threads may ...

factory was the Sheldon

loom A loom is a device used to weave cloth and tapestry. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. The precise shape of the loom and its mechanics may vary, but th ...

s, established here in

by William Sheldon about the middle of the 16th century. The

Sheldon tapestries Sheldon tapestries were produced at Britain's first large tapestry works in Barcheston, Warwickshire, England, established by the Sheldon family. A group of 121 tapestries dateable to the late 16th century were produced. Much the most famous ar ...

produced here compare well with the finest contemporary

Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...

weavings. Some of these consisted of large tapestry maps of English counties. An outline of Barcheston's history can be found in the

Victoria County History The Victoria History of the Counties of England, commonly known as the Victoria County History or the VCH, is an English history project which began in 1899 with the aim of creating an encyclopaedic history of each of the historic counties of En ...

, Warwickshire.Victoria County History, Warwickshire vol 5 (1949) on-line, pp. 5-9 Accessed 2 March 2013
/ref>

References

External links

* * Villages in Warwickshire Civil parishes in Warwickshire Stratford-on-Avon District {{Warwickshire-geo-stub

See also

References

External links