Caldecote 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 authorit ...

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, 2 miles north of Nuneaton and south of the A5. An ancient settlement, Caldecote is recorded in the 1086

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 manus ...

as being in the ownership of the

Bishop of Chester The Bishop of Chester is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Chester in the Province of York. The diocese extends across most of the historic county boundaries of Cheshire, including the Wirral Peninsula and has its see in the ...

Caldecote Hall

The

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals w ...

, Caldecote Hall, was the home of Parliamentarian Colonel William Purefoy during the

English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...

and was damaged by

Royalist A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of governm ...

siege by Prince Rupert in 1642. In the 18th century it was owned by Nathan Wright. The Hall was rebuilt in brick in 1880, for Henry Leigh Townshend, who was High Sheriff of

in 1901. In 1924, the Hall was bought by the

Church of England Temperance Society The temperance movement in the United Kingdom was a social movement that campaigned against the recreational use and sale of alcohol, and promoted total abstinence (teetotalism). In the 19th century, high levels of alcohol consumption and drunke ...

, for use as a retreat. In the 1950s, it was the home of St Chad's School but suffered financial problems and a severe fire in 1955. In 2005 it was restored and converted to private flats.

Gallery

File:Nuneaton caldecote.jpg, River Anker File:Nuneaton caldecotehall.jpg, Caldecote Hall

Sources

Sheasby, Alan (1990) ''Skylark Fields: A Forties Childhood'' Exeter, Devon: Wheaton Publishers Ltd/Warwickshire Books, (Includes a map of Caldecote and surrounding district)

References

Villages in Warwickshire Civil parishes in Warwickshire Borough of North Warwickshire {{Warwickshire-geo-stub