Ansty 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the Rugby Borough of

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Staffordshire and Leicestershire to the north, Northamptonshire to the east, Ox ...

, England, about northeast of Coventry city centre and 7 miles (13 km) south of

Hinckley Hinckley is a market town in south-west Leicestershire, England, administered by Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council. Hinckley is the third largest settlement in Leicestershire, after Leicester and Loughborough, and is about halfway between L ...

. Ansty is on the B4065, which used to be the main road between Coventry and Hinckley. The junction between the M6 and M69 motorways and A46 road is southwest of the village. The parish had a population of 299 at the 2021 Census. The northern section of the

Oxford Canal The Oxford Canal is a narrowboat canal in southern central England linking the City of Oxford with the Coventry Canal at Hawkesbury (just north of Coventry and south of Bedworth) via Banbury and Rugby. Completed in 1790, it connects to th ...

, once a major coal-carrying network and now a popular leisure resource, passes through the village. Ansty has been cited as "the most boater-hostile village on the canals" because of the huge number of "no mooring" signs.

History

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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086 mentions ''Anestie'' as part of the

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numerals, Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 (number), 99 and preceding 101 (number), 101. In mathematics 100 is the square of 10 (number), 10 (in scientific notation it is written as 102). The standar ...

of Brinklow.Stephens, 1969, pages 98-103 The main landowner was

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. She is mainly remembere ...

. Ansty was part of the County of the City of Coventry from 1451 until that county was dissolved in 1842. The

Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ...

of Saint James has a 13th-century

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

.Pevsner & Wedgwood, 1966, page 67 The arcade between the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and north

aisle An aisle is a linear space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, in buildings such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, parliaments, courtrooms, ...

is 14th century. Sir

George Gilbert Scott Sir George Gilbert Scott (13 July 1811 – 27 March 1878), largely known as Sir Gilbert Scott, was a prolific English Gothic Revival architect, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches and cathedrals, although he ...

rebuilt the rest of the church in 1856. Ansty Hall, just outside the village, was built in 1678 for Richard Taylor, who had been on the Parliamentarian side in the

English Civil War The English Civil War or Great Rebellion was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Cavaliers, Royalists and Roundhead, Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of th ...

. The house is arranged in seven bays and built of brick with stone

quoins Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th-century encyclopedia, ...

and

pediment Pediments are a form of gable in classical architecture, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice (an elaborated lintel), or entablature if supported by columns.Summerson, 130 In an ...

. It is now the Ansty Hall Hotel. A

cottage industry The putting-out system is a means of subcontracting work, like a tailor. Historically, it was also known as the workshop system and the domestic system. In putting-out, work is contracted by a central agent to subcontractors who complete the p ...

of weaving developed in the parish from early in the 18th century. This grew into a substantial ribbon-making trade early in the 19th century, but declined in the 1830s. James Brindley completed the section of the Oxford Canal through Ansty in 1771. In November 1963 a high embankment on the towpath side gave way, spilling 10,000 tons of sand and clay onto adjoining land. RAF Ansty, a

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

training base, operated nearby between 1936 and 1953. In the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, Armstrong Siddeley Motors had its development plant for

gas turbine A gas turbine or gas turbine engine is a type of Internal combustion engine#Continuous combustion, continuous flow internal combustion engine. The main parts common to all gas turbine engines form the power-producing part (known as the gas gene ...

s and aircraft rocket motors as well as the

Gamma Gamma (; uppercase , lowercase ; ) is the third letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 3. In Ancient Greek, the letter gamma represented a voiced velar stop . In Modern Greek, this letter normally repr ...

rocket motors used in the Black Knight and Black Arrow launchers. The plant is now the Ansty engineering works of

Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...

. In 2013, Rolls-Royce announced the closure of the military part of the plant. The civil part of the plant remains unaffected. In 2012, Ansty erected its first War Memorial, a black

obelisk An obelisk (; , diminutive of (') ' spit, nail, pointed pillar') is a tall, slender, tapered monument with four sides and a pyramidal or pyramidion top. Originally constructed by Ancient Egyptians and called ''tekhenu'', the Greeks used th ...

, after the hard work of local villagers headed by Chief Petty Officer Dean Bateman. In 2017 London Electric Vehicle Company (part of the

Geely Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., Ltd. (ZGH), commonly known as Geely Holding ( ; ), is a Chinese multinational automotive conglomerate headquartered in Hangzhou, China. The company was founded by, and is privately owned by Chinese entrepre ...

Group) established a major production facility for EV taxis and vans 1.5 miles south of the village at Ansty Park (separated by the M6 motorway).

Amenities

Ansty has a gastropub restaurant, The Rose and Castle just beside the canal and The Ansty Club on Grove Road. There is also The Ansty Golf Club which is open to none members.

Gallery

Image:St James Church -Ansty2 19j08.jpg, St James' Parish Church Image:Oxford Canal -Ansty bridge 19j08.jpg, Road bridge over the Oxford Canal Image:Ansty Hall - front 19j08.jpg, Ansty Hall

History

Amenities

Gallery

References

Sources

External links