Wilmcote
| Wilmcote | |
| Warwickshire | |
|---|---|
 Palmer's Farm, Wilmcote | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SP163581 |
| Location: | 52°13’16"N, 1°45’43"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 1,674 (2001) |
| Post town: | Stratford-upon-Avon |
| Postcode: | CV37 |
| Dialling code: | 01789 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Stratford-on-Avon |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Stratford-on-Avon |
Wilmcote is a village in Warwickshire, about 3 miles north of Stratford-upon-Avon.
The village has a church, a primary school, a village hall, a village club, one small hotel, a shop and a pub. Visitors are attracted to Mary Arden's House the home of William Shakespeare's mother.
Contents
History
Wilmcote, is listed as Wilmecote in the Domesday Book, part of the lands of Osbern son of Richard, whose father was Richard FitzScrob (or FitzScrope), builder of Richard's Castle. The entry reads: "In Pathlow Hundred. Also from Osbern, Urso hold 3 hides in Wilmcote. Land for 4 ploughs. In lordship 2; 2 slaves; 2 villagers and 2 smallholders with 2 ploughs. Meadow, 24 acres. The value was 30s; now 60s;. Leofwin Doda held it freely before 1066."[1]
By 1205, according to Dugdale, it was held by Brito Camerarius, Chamberlain of Normandy and in that year was seized by King John, together with the other English lands of Normans for adhering to the King of France, Phillip II.[2] In 1228 William de Wilmecote was claiming the advowson of the chapel here against the Archdeacon of Gloucester. In 1316 Wilmcote is called a hamlet of Aston Cantlow, and Laurence Hastings, who succeeded as Earl of Pembroke in 1325, is said to have given the manor of GREAT WILMCOTE to John son of John de Wyncote. During the Black Death (1348–9) Sir John, Eleanor and Joan, and three of the daughters died; and the last of the daughters, Elizabeth, whose wardship had come to the Crown as guardian of the young Earl of Pembroke, died in 1350.
No more is known of the manor until 1561, when an estate described as the manor of Great Wilmcote, including Mary Arden's house and land in Shelfield, was granted by Thomas Fynderne of Nuneaton to Adam Palmer of Aston Cantlow and George Gibbs of Wilmcote. Palmer and Gibbs held jointly until 1575, when a partition was made. The descent of Palmer's portion is not known, but Gibbs's, which included Mary Arden's house, remained in the family until another George Gibbs sold it to Matthew Walford of Claverdon in 1704. Walford's son and heir, also Matthew, married Elizabeth Jones and died in 1729, leaving his estates to be held jointly by his five daughters. Whatever manorial rights may have attached to this property had by now disappeared. At the time of the Inclosure in 1742–3 the manor of Wilmcote was included in that of Aston Cantlow, and Elizabeth Walford, widow, appears in the Award only as the proprietor of 5 yard-lands in the common field.[3]
Churches
The parish church is St Andrew's. It is a small church built between 1840-42 for the Knottesford Fortescue family.
The church was the built by the Oxford Movement, an Anglo-Catholic movement in the Church of England in the early nineteenth century, as here they chose to build a church, a school and a retreat house, before which the village had no church, belonging to the neighbouring village's parish, Aston Cantlow. The nineteenth century saw growth of population due to the growth of the Wilmcote quarries. St Andrew's is a monument to the influence of the Oxford Movement in the parish.
There was a chapel at Wilmcote, first mentioned in 1228 when the advowson was in dispute between William de Wilmcote, and the Archdeacon of Gloucester. In the 14th century the advowson was held with the manor of Little Wilmcote, until in 1481 Henry de Lisle gave it to the Gild of the Holy Cross at Stratford. The chaplains were instituted and inducted by the vicars of Stratford.[2][3]
Economy
The geology of the area around Wilmcote contains areas of good limestone, and a significant quarrying industry grew up in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly after the opening of the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal in 1816 which was routed through Wilmcote because of its quarries. Today the area has many small disused quarries, mostly filled in, and just-visible paths of tramways linking them to the canal. There is a larger quarry which has not been filled in and which is now a nature reserve. There are remains of lime kilns, built to turn the limestone into cement.
Wilmcote stone splits well into sheets and was used for paving as well as for building. It was used for paving the floors in the Palace of Westminster when these were rebuilt in the nineteenth century.
The last of the quarries closed in the early twentieth century, but they have left a great legacy for the village. There are several rows of former quarry workers cottages, built in Wilmcote stone, and a pub called the Masons' Arms. The quarries were one of the main reasons why the canal and railway, which add so much to the village today, were routed through Wilmcote. The first Wilmcote railway station opened in 1860, on a site alongside the canal wharves: it was replaced by the present station when the line was doubled in 1908.
Transport links
Wilmcote railway station is situated on the North Warwickshire Line, part of the Great Western Railway's mainline route from Birmingham to Cheltenham. The village is a popular stop on the Stratford-upon-Avon to Birmingham Canal, and is on a National Cycleway.
Mary Arden's Farm
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Mary Arden's Farm, also known as Mary Arden's House, is the farmhouse owned by Mary Shakespeare, the mother of William Shakespeare, three miles from Shakespeare's own home, Stratford-upon-Avon. The house has been maintained in good condition because it had been a working farmhouse over the centuries.
The house was bought by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in 1930 and refurnished in the Tudor style.[4]
In 2000 it was discovered that the building preserved as Mary Arden's house had belonged to a friend and neighbour Adam Palmer and the house was renamed Palmer's Farm. The house that had belonged to the Arden family which was near to Palmer's Farm had been acquired by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in 1968 for preservation as part of a farmyard without knowing its true provenance.[5]
The house and farm reflect life in the 16th century, specifically 1573. The farm contains many rare breeds of animals including Mangalitza and Tamworth Pigs, Cotswold Sheep, Long Horn Cattle, Baggot and Golden Guernsey Goats, Geese and Birds of Prey including a Hooded Vulture.[6]
Cultural references
It is the consensus among scholars that the Induction of The Taming of The Shrew is set in rural Warwickshire.[7] One character mentioned, however, allows for a greater localization - to the village of Wilmcote. Sly, the drunken tinker, beseeches the Lord: "Ask Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot, if she know me not" [Ind.2.18-19]. The minutes of the Stratford Corporation, 11 November 1584 (approximately a decade before the play), mention "the tythes of Wyncote", the very spelling of the village that appears in the First Folio text of The Shrew.
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Wilmcote) |
References
- ↑ Domesday Book for Warwickshire, Phillimore edited by John Morris ISBN 0-85033-141-2
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 William Dugdale, The Antiquities of Warwickshire, 1656
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 'Aston Cantlow', A History of the County of Warwick - Volume 3: Barlichway hundred (1945)
- ↑ "Mary Arden's House (the mother of William Shakespeare)". Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. http://www.shakespeare.org.uk/visit-the-houses/mary-ardens-farm.html.
- ↑ The Shakespeare Houses - The Official Guide, Revised 2008, ISBN 978-0-7117-2949-0
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ Weis, René (2007). Shakespeare Revealed. John Murray, ISBN 0-7195-6418-2.
