Water Orton
| Water Orton | |
| Warwickshire | |
|---|---|
 Farmland by Water Orton | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SP179927 |
| Location: | 52°31’1"N, 1°44’10"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 3,573 |
| Post town: | Birmingham |
| Postcode: | B46 |
| Dialling code: | 0121 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | North Warwickshire |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
North Warwickshire |
Water Orton is a village in Warwickshire, standing on the River Tame, from which it takes the “Water” name, and now squashed between the M6 and M6 Toll motorways and their associated feeder roads.
Water Orton is found between Castle Bromwich and Coleshill. At the 2001 census, the population was 3,573.
The village
Notwithstanding the imposition of motorways across the landscape and the growth of neighbouring towns, Water Orton retains a great deal of charm and is surrounded with farmland where the intrusion of modernity permits. The village has is a fine Pack Horse Bridge, which is scheduled as an Ancient Monument, over the River Tame on the road to Minworth. The bridge was built by Bishop John Vesey in 1520.
Water Orton today has a small High Street with a variety of shops and take aways, two pubs, a Primary School, two other Churches, Doctor and Dental surgeries, two parks, a Cricket Club, a Rugby Club, an amateur football side (Orton Rangers FC) and a parish hall, which has recently been rebuilt and renamed 'The Link'.
The village has an active amateur dramatics company, ("The Company of the Curtain"), who produced all their productions in the Water Orton Parish Hall until December 2008 and now in the neighbouring village of Curdworth.
A village carnival is held every summer.
Name of the village
Water Orton was first documented in an Assize Roll of 1262 as 'Overton' which means “riverbank farmstead”. It may also be the place referred to in the Domesday Book as 'Wavre', included with Castle Bromwich.
Churches
- Church of England:
- Baptist: John Bunyan
- Methodist: Water Orton Methodist Church
- Roman Catholic: St John
Transport
The village is close to the M6, M6 toll and M42 motorways, caught in the cleft between the former two.
Water Orton railway station was built in 1842 and is located at the junction of the B4118 and Birmingham Road.
History
The oldest part of the village is centred on Old Church Road, which is now a conservation area and contains buildings from the 14th and 17th centuries. This is the area which stands on a high ridge of land overlooking the valley of the River Tame, which may account for the name of the village.
A chapel of ease was erected here in the 14th century to save the villagers trudging through the often flooded Tame Valley to the Parish Church at Aston. This was replaced by the present church and all that survives of the Chapel are the listed remains of a mediæval cross and the graves in the churchyard. The present Parish Church of St Peter and St Paul was built in 1879 for £4,000 to a design by Bateman and Corser. It had a fine spire, which unfortunately had to be dismantled in the 1980s due to the effects of atmospheric pollution.
Until the 1840s Water Orton was mainly an agricultural village, but this changed with the coming of the railways. The first railway was from Birmingham to Derby by way of Water Orton, Coleshill, Whitacre Heath and Tamworth. Later a junction was constructed and another line was built by way of Kingsbury to Tamworth. The lines pass through the centre of the village. The present railway station was built in 1908, the village's second station. Until the Beeching Axe of the 1960s, there were extensive sidings and much commercial traffic here. An effect of the railway was to increase house building in the village. Commuters could now make the journey to Birmingham's Lawley Street and Curzon Street (later New Street) Railway Stations in a shorter time than by road. This made the village an ideal residential area for Birmingham professionals who wanted to get away from the city and live in the country.
The railway also brought the Meat Industry here. There were large stock yards near the sidings and next to the Dog Inn in Marsh Lane. Cattle were offloaded from rail wagons into pens, then driven two miles down the road to butchers' slaughter houses in Castle Bromwich.
References
- Walmley and its surroundings (Chapter VIII: Water Orton), Douglas V. Jones, 1990, Westwood Press (ISBN 0-948025-11-5)
- Water Orton Station