Wolvey is a village and
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 ...
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-Avon an ...
, England. According to the
2011 census it had a population of 1,942, which increased to 2,121 at the
2021 census.
The village is located on the Warwickshire/Leicestershire border in an outlying part of the
borough of Rugby
The Borough of Rugby is a local government district with borough status in eastern Warwickshire, England. The borough comprises the town of Rugby where the council has its headquarters, and the rural areas surrounding the town. The borough has a ...
. The village is, however, more than north-west from the town of
Rugby
Rugby may refer to:
Sport
* Rugby football in many forms:
** Rugby league: 13 players per side
*** Masters Rugby League
*** Mod league
*** Rugby league nines
*** Rugby league sevens
*** Touch (sport)
*** Wheelchair rugby league
** Rugby union: 1 ...
and closer to
Hinckley
Hinckley is a market town in south-west Leicestershire, England. It is administered by Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council. Hinckley is the third largest settlement in the administrative county of Leicestershire, after Leicester and Loughbor ...
(five miles to the north),
Nuneaton
Nuneaton ( ) is a market town in the borough of Nuneaton and Bedworth in northern Warwickshire, England, close to the county border with Leicestershire and West Midlands County.OS Explorer Map 232 : Nuneaton & Tamworth: (1:25 000) : Nuneaton's ...
(six miles to the north-west) and
Coventry
Coventry ( or ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its ...
(ten miles south-west). The source of the
River Anker
The River Anker is a river in England that flows through the centre of Nuneaton. It is a major tributary of the River Tame, which it joins in Tamworth. The name of the river derives from an old British term for ''winding river''. From source t ...
is near the highest point in the parish, 130 metres. Originally on the main route between Leicester and Coventry, is now served by the
B4065 and
B4109 road
B roads are numbered routes in Great Britain of lesser importance than A roads. See the article Great Britain road numbering scheme
The Great Britain road numbering scheme is a numbering scheme used to classify and identify all roads in Gr ...
s. The hamlet of
Bramcote
Bramcote is a suburban village in the Broxtowe district of Nottinghamshire, England, between Stapleford and Beeston. It is in Broxtowe parliamentary constituency. The main Nottingham–Derby road today is the A52, Brian Clough Way. Nearby ...
forms a western part of the parish, This was the site of a Second World War airfield, RAF Bramcote, subsequently used by the Royal Naval Air Service and renamed HMS Gamecock. Since 1959 it has been used by the army and is known as the Gamecock
Barracks
Barracks are usually a group of long buildings built to house military personnel or laborers. The English word originates from the 17th century via French and Italian from an old Spanish word "barraca" ("soldier's tent"), but today barracks are u ...
.
Discoveries of Neolithic flint tools and Bronze Age burial mounds suggest early occupation of the parish while a major Roman road, Watling Street, forms part of the parish boundary. The village certainly existed in
Saxon
The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic
*
*
*
*
peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
times and the Domesday Survey, compiled in 1086, records 22 households with three further households at Bramcote. By the 12th century there was an additional township, which included a chapel, at the now deserted site of Little Copston (Copston Parva). At this time Wolvey was an important population centre for the area with a weekly market and an annual fair.
The village still retains some older buildings including the church of ''St John the Baptist'' with its Norman doorway and monumental tombs of Thomas de Wolvey (died 1311) and his wife Alice; also that of Thomas Astley and his wife, Catherine (died 1603). The South Aisle of the church was rebuilt by Thomas de Wolvey's daughter as a memorial Chantry to her husband Sir Giles de Astley who died following the battle of Bannockburn in 1314. The church building has undergone considerable repair and alteration over the years. The chancel was rebuilt in the gothic style by Lord Overstone of Wolvey Grange in the mid-nineteenth century and the present porch to the south door added in 1909. The Millennium Building to the south of the church was built in 2000 to provide important support facilities.
The early village would have clustered around the market place (now The Square) but there is little evidence of it in today's buildings.. A staircase dated 1677 in Wolvey Hall reflects the rebuilding of the original house but this was remodelled in 1889. Other late seventeenth century survivals, although modified, include Hollytree Cottage in Wolds Lane and probably 'The Blue Pig' public house with the village pump which will have served as a coaching inn for the Coventry – Leicester traffic in earlier times. The ‘Old Thatched Cottage’ on the edge of The Square dates to the later eighteenth century as does the Baptist Chapel, built in 1789.
Essentially a farming community for most of its history, industrialization affected the village in the nineteenth century when
knitting
Knitting is a method by which yarn is manipulated to create a textile, or fabric. It is used to create many types of garments. Knitting may be done by hand or by machine.
Knitting creates stitches: loops of yarn in a row, either flat or i ...
and
weaving
Weaving is a method of textile production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. Other methods are knitting, crocheting, felting, and braiding or plaiting. The longitudinal th ...
became important trades for a time. There is no evidence to support the popular view that it was a
milling centre with 27 windmills. The well-known engraving of four windmills in Wolvey, published in 1854 by Thomas Dugdale, has been shown to be a forgery and was based on an earlier print of windmills on Montmartre, Paris. While rural industry continues, modern housing provides for a commuting population benefiting from the village's proximity to major motorway and rail networks and urban centres.
The name Wolvey most probably came from the
Anglo-Saxon
The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...
''wulf-hæg'' or ''wulf-heg e'' = "
wolf
The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly u ...
hedge
A hedge or hedgerow is a line of closely spaced shrubs and sometimes trees, planted and trained to form a barrier or to mark the boundary of an area, such as between neighbouring properties. Hedges that are used to separate a road from adjoini ...
" = "
enclosure
Enclosure or Inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or " common land" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land ...
with a hedge to keep wolves out".
Wolvey Hall
Wolvey Hall is a Grade II listed 17th-century house remodelled in 1889 which stands in Hall Road, Wolvey. It is constructed of brick in two storeys with attics and a 6-bay frontage.
A Roman Catholic chapel is attached and in the grounds is the ruined Jacobs Well, bearing a date of 1707.
The current house was rebuilt in 1889 using material from an earlier house built in 1677 and also includes fragments from an even earlier building. In the mid-1700s the house was owned by the Arnold family, who could trace family ownership of the manor of Wolvey back to Sir Thomas de Wolvey (died 1315). It has been owned by the Coape-Arnolds since Georgeana, daughter of George Henry Arnold, married James Coape of Goldhanger, Essex in 1840. In 1891 Henry Fraser James Coape-Arnold, a catholic convert, built the chapel at the Hall which served the Catholic residents of the area until the early 1920s.
The hall is currently in the possession of the Freeman family, with children Arabella and Theo by descent from Mary Freeman née Burbidge.
References
* Allen, G (2000) ''Warwickshire Towns & Villages'',
* Lewis, G (1992) ''The Wolvey Area Before History'', in ''Wolvey - a Warwickshire Village, Book 2'', 21–27, Wolvey Local History Group
* Salzman, L F (ed) (1951)'Parishes: Wolvey', in Victoria County History,''A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 6: Knightlow hundred'', pp. 281–287. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=57148 Accessed: 10 September 2010.
*
External links
{{authority control
Villages in Warwickshire