Stoneleigh, Warwickshire

Historical Description

Stoneleigh, a village and a parish in Warwickshire. The village stands at the confluence of the river Sowe with the Avon, 3 miles E by N of Kenilworth. It has a post office under Kenilworth; money order and telegraph office, Kenilworth. The parish contains also the hamlets of Finham and Hill. Acreage, 10,031; population of the civil parish, 1211; of the ecclesiastical, 607. There is a parish council consisting of seven members. The manor, from before the Norman Conquest till the time of Henry II., belonged to the Crown. A Cistercian monastery was founded here by Henry II.; went, at the Dissolution, to the Brandons, and was purchased by Sir Thomas Leigh, Lord Mayor of London, in the reign of Elizabeth, and has remained in the possession of his descendants. The representative of the family was raised to the peerage in 1643, and the barony, having become extinct, was recreated in 1839. Stoneleigh Abbey is a magnificent mansion, situated in an extensive, undulating, and well-wooded park. It was built about 1720 by the third Lord Leigh of the first creation, and comprises a chapel and several splendid apartments, containing a good collection of pictures by Van-dyck, Holbein, Gainsborough, &c. Of the ancient monastic buildings the chief remains are a picturesque gatehouse bearing the arms of Henry II. and some Norman arches and pillars in the offices. The mansion was visited in 1858 by Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Worcester; net value, £300 with residence. Patron, Lord Leigh. The church is ancient, partly Norman, and partly Decorated, and consists of chancel, Leigh chapel, nave, N and S aisles, and a tower. The chancel arch presents excellent examples of Norman moulding. The church contains a large monument to Alice, Duchess Dudley. She married Robert Dudley the son of the famous Earl of Leicester, and was made a duchess in her own right by Charles I., whom she and her nephew received at Stoneleigh Abbey when the men of Coventry closed their gates against him. The vicarage of Westwood is a separate benefice. There are a reading-room and library and almshouses.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Church Records

The Warwickshire County Record Office hold the following registers for Stoneleigh:

Most of the records prior to 1911 have been digitised and are available on Ancestry.co.uk

Civil Registration

For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Stoneleigh from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Stoneleigh (St. Mary))

Land and Property

The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Warwickshire is available to browse.

Maps

Online maps of Stoneleigh are available from a number of sites:

• Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• Google Streetview.
• National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
• OpenStreetMap.
• old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
• Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)

Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Warwickshire papers online:

• Leamington Spa Courier

Visitations Heraldic

The Visitation of Warwickshire 1619 is available on the Heraldry page.