Wootton Wawen is a village and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon district of Warwickshire, England. The village is on the A3400 in mid-western Warwickshire, about from Birmingham, about south of Henley-in-Arden and about north of Stratford-upon-Avon. The soil is a strong clay and some arable crops are grown, but the land is mainly in pasture. The common fields were inclosed in 1776, but some inclosures had already been made about 1623.

The scenery is wooded and undulating, rising from about , in the south to , in the north-west at College Farm, above Forde Hall. Near here is Mockley Wood, which, with May's Wood in the centre of the parish and Austy Wood near Edstone, is one of the larger blocks of woodland. The older part of the village straddling the A3400 is designated as a Conservation Area because of its open, rural character and many historic buildings.

History

The toponym "Wootton Wawen" means "farm near a wood, belonging to Wagen". Wagen or Waga is an Old Norse name.

The oldest surviving record of Wootton is from when Æthelbald, King of the Mercians, gave to the Earl Aethilric 20 hides of land for a minster between the years 723 and 737. The first wooden church was built at Wootton as a direct result of this charter of land, (about ) on which to build a monastery or minster of Saint Mary. The first church may have been burnt and pillaged by Viking invaders, but between about 970 and 1040, Wagen, an Anglo-Danish landowner, established the present church. This land was in the district of the Stoppingas near the river Aeluuinnae, now called the Alne. Waga was one of the witnesses to Earl Leofric's foundation of the monastery at Coventry in the first year of the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042–43). His lands extended beyond those at Wootton Wawen, but, after the Norman conquest of England, Wootton was bestowed by William the Conqueror on Robert de Stafford, descended from the de Tonei family and who had fought stoutly with Duke William against King Harold. He made Stafford Castle his principal seat and took his surname thence.

Charles II passed through Wootton on his travels while escaping from England after the Battle of Worcester. Here, the king, disguised as the man-servant of the daughter of one of his supporters, Jane Lane, met with a party of Parliamentarian troopers:

The Cinema Museum in London holds Archive film of Wootton Wawen from the summer of 1952.

Economy

Wootton Wawen has always been primarily a farming settlement, but over the centuries industrial activity has included milling; two mills are mentioned in Domesday Book. Early in the 19th century there was a mill used for papermaking, as it probably was a century earlier – a reference to William Martin, "paperman" of Wootton, occurring in 1717 Nationally it is part of Stratford-on-Avon constituency, whose Member of Parliament has been Manuela Perteghella of the Liberal Democrats since the 2024 general election. It was included in the West Midlands electoral region of the European Parliament.

Parish church

thumb|St Peter's church from the south-east

The Church of England parish church of Saint Peter is notable for having the most pronounced Anglo-Saxon work in the county. It is the oldest church in Warwickshire, although much of the present fabric is later. It comprises a chancel with a south chapel, nave, South aisle and on the North the tower embattled and pinnacled. There are also North and South porches the east jamb of the south porch has several votive crosses scored into it. The base of the tower and the first two stages are Saxon with four doorways, the top of the tower is 15th century as are the clerestory, the nave battlements, the north doorway and porch, the middle arch of the arcade, the west window with busts of a king and queen and the east window with a leaf frieze. The tower is the earliest part of the church, preserved in the middle despite restricting views of the chancel from the nave, which is the current site of the altar. The font is an octagonal bowl resting on eight sculptured heads similar to others in the county at Snitterfield and Lapworth. The second bell was cast in 1591 by a member of the Watts family of bellfounders of Leicester. The tenor bell was cast in 1719 by Richard Sanders of Bromsgrove. The fourth bell was cast in 1784

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File:Wootton Wawen St Peters 0032.JPG|St Peter's nave

File:Wootton Wawen St Peters 0022.JPG|St Peter's font

File:Wootton Wawen St Peters 0026.JPG|St Peter's Chained Library

File:Wootton Wawen St Peters 0016.JPG|Chest tomb of John Harewell, 1365–1428

File:Wootton Wawen St Peters 0035.JPG|Votive crosses in the jamb of the south doorway

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In the Black Death, bodies from Coventry were transported to the churchyard for burial in an area which has become known as the "Coventry Piece". This ground still cannot be disturbed.

Priory

Not long after the Norman Conquest, Robert de Stafford gave the church of Wootton with a hide of land nearby and another hide at "Doversele" to the Benedictine Abbey of St Peter de Castellion of Conches in Normandy which had been established in 1035 They established a small alien priory here: a prior and one monk constituted its community and the church was re-dedicated to St Peter ad Vincula. In 1398 Richard II gave the priory to the Carthusians at Coventry, but the grant was reversed soon after by Henry IV and the monks re-established. It was bestowed with all its possessions on 12 December 1443 upon the Provost and Scholars of King's College, Cambridge, and on 30 November 1447 the Abbey of Conches released all title to the Priory to the college, in whose hands the manor still remains. No trace of the priory buildings remains but they stood between the churchyard and the ancient fishpond that is near the Henley Road.

Historic secular buildings

Between the mill and the church is Wootton Hall, a large stone building in the Palladian style, mainly built in 1687 but incorporating parts of an earlier, probably Elizabethan, house. It was originally the home of the Carington family. Outbuildings behind the house are possibly the remains of the earlier manor-house. who developed the grounds into a mobile home park. This development rescued and restored the Hall and revitalised the community.

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File:Wootton Wawen War Memorial 001.JPG|Wootton War Memorial

File:Wootton Wawen Wootton Hall 002.JPG|Wootton Hall and Park

File:Wootton Wawen Wootton Hall 003.JPG|Wootton Hall Lodge Gate

File:Wootton Wawen Wootton Hall 005.JPG|Wootton Hall

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Other notable buildings include the Bull's Head Inn, situated at the south end of the street, being an L-shaped low building of timber-framing, probably of the 16th century. Inside are wide fireplaces, one with a lintel inscribed M 1697 TH, and open-timbered ceilings, however there is a stone giving the date of the building as 1317. Three of the buildings north of it on the same side, and The Cottage, facing the south end of the village street, have remains of 17th-century timber framing. In a short lane south of the church is the old Workhouse, now a dwelling-house; it is a small timber-framed building covered with rough-cast cement and has a gabled north end with a jettied upper storey.

The Manor Farm, at the north end of the village, is built of early-18th-century brick, but the chimneystack of diagonal shafts looks earlier. The west front, slightly recessed between gabled cross-wings, has a doorway with a semi-domical hood carved with palm leaves and a basket of fruit and flowers.

Wootton Wawen railway station was opened in 1908 on a branch of the Great Western Railway. The route is now the Birmingham to Stratford Line. The line south of Stratford upon Avon railway station continued as the Honeybourne Line to Honeybourne railway station (which is on the Cotswold Line) and onwards to Cheltenham.

Notable residents

In the Second World War the Russian composer Nikolai Medtner and his wife lived in a secluded house outside Wootton Wawen, where he completed his Piano Concerto No. 3.

Author Bill Watkins spent much of his youth in Wootton Wawen; his book A Celtic Childhood records his childhood adventures in and around the village during the 1950s.

‘The Greens from Wootton Wawen’ are mentioned in Theroux’s travel book, The Pillars of Hercules.

References

  • History of Wootton Hall and its 'Secret Tunnel'