Maxstoke History

Maxstoke History

Maxstoke, a brief history

Like several north Arden parishes, settlement in Maxstoke lies not in a single nucleated village, but dispersed amongst a number of small hamlets and isolated farmsteads.

It is also a parish dominated by two important historic buildings, a 14th –century moated castle and an Augustinian Priory. By the end of the medieval period, land ownership in Maxstoke was divided into two lordships, the Priory Lordship and the Castle Lordship.

There was also a small, independent sub-manor, Maxstoke Hall Lordship, based on Hall Farm, which survived a separate manorial entity until purchased in 1812 by William Dilke and added to the Castle Lordship.

After the Suppression the Priory Lordship eventually passed to the Leighs of Stoneleigh. Most of the estate was sold off in 1920. The Castle Lordship has survived largely intact.

The Warwickshire Photographic Survey, housed in the Birmingham Reference Library, contains many old excellent pictures of the parish.

The parish has change very little over the last hundred years. There have been a few new bungalows built, such as those at the bottom of Castle Lane and several old cottage and barns have been demolished, but generally, building development has been kept to a minimum, helping Maxstoke to retain its ‘unspoilt’ rural character.

By kind permission of Colin Hayfield from “Maxstoke Remembered”.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Stow on the Wold, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.