Tanworth-in-Arden

Tanworth-in-Arden
Warwickshire
Tanworth-in-Arden village green
Location
Grid reference:	SP112704
Location:	52°19’54"N, 1°50’9"W
Data
Population:	3,017  (2001)
Post town:	Solihull
Postcode:	B94
Local Government
Council:	Stratford-on-Avon

Tanworth-in-Arden is a small village and parish in the Kington Hundred of Warwickshire, in open farmland south-east of Birmingham. The population of the civil parish was recorded as 3,017 at the 2001 census, which figure included the small village of Wood End, about one mile north of Tanworth.

The suffix to the name Tanworth refers to the Forest of Arden in which the village lay. Notable historical buildings still standing in the village include The Bell Inn public house and the 14th-century Church of St Mary Magdalene.

Tanworth was the childhood home of folk musician Nick Drake and his sister the actress Gabrielle Drake. His grave lies in the parish churchyard. The song "Life in a Northern Town" by The Dream Academy is a reference to Tanworth - despite its midlands, and not northern situation - and a tribute to Drake.

The grave of nine-times world motorcycle champion Mike Hailwood MBE, GM, and his daughter Michelle, who were both killed in a car accident at Portway in 1981, are also to be found here. An annual memorial motorcycle run is held every March from the former Norton motorcycle factory to Tanworth. The boxer "Gentleman" Jack Hood was the licensee of the Bell public house in Tanworth, displaying above the bar the Lonsdale belt that he won on 31 May 1926. (The belt was sold by his daughters in 2011.)

The village was also the filming location for the fictional village of Kings Oak from the British television series Crossroads between 1970 and 1988.

The parish includes Umberslade Hall, for six hundred years the home of the Archer family and later the industrialist George Frederic Muntz.

The village lies close to the ex-Great Western Railway |line from Birmingham to Stratford-upon-Avon but has never had a station of its own: rather it lies mid-way between two others - Wood End to the north and Danzey to the south, both about a mile distant, though the latter was once known as Danzey for Tanworth.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Tanworth-in-Arden)

• Tanworth-in-Arden Parish Council, Tanworth-in-Arden & Earlswood
• Annual Mike Hailwood Memorial Run to Tanworth