Monks Kirby, Warwickshire

Historical Description

Monks Kirby, a township and a parish in Warwickshire, The township lies adjacent to the Fosse Way, 2 miles N by E of Brinklow station on the Trent Valley section of the L. & N.W.R., 3 SW of Watling Street at the boundary with Leicestershire, and 7 NNW of Rugby, and has a post and telegraph office under Lutterworth; money order office, Pail-ton. Acreage, 4563; population, 692. It has a parish council consisting of six members. The parish contains also the hamlets of Pailton, Stretton-under-Foss, Newbold Revel, and Copston Magna, and the township of Easenhall. Acreage, 8694; population of the civil parish, 1680; of the ecclesiastical, 1914. The manor was known at Domesday as Chirchberye; was given by William the Conqueror to Geoffrey de Wirce; was given by him to the monks of Anglers in Normandy, who then founded here a cell of their abbey; took thence the name of Monks Kirby; was given by Richard II, to Thomas Mowbray in exchange for Epworth Priory; passed in the time of Henry VIII. to the Duke of Suffolk; went by sale to Lord Feilding; and has descended to the Earl of Denbigh. Newnham Paddox, a handsome mansion, is the Earl of Denbigh's seat, and contains a choice collection of family portraits and works of art. A Roman Catholic chapel is attached to the house. Townthorn, Street Aston House, and Newbold Revel also are chief residences. A place called Cloudesley Bush, on the W side of the Fosse Way, takes its name from having a mound reputed to have been the burial-place of a Roman commander called Claudius, and numerous Roman relics, including bricks and substructions, have been found. The living is a vicarage, united with the vicarage of Withybrook and the chapelry of Copston Magna, in the diocese of Worcester; net value, £340. Patron, Trinity College, Cambridge. The church was built on the site of an older one hy Geoffrey de Wirce, was rebuilt by the Duke of Suffolk of the time of Henry VIII.; consists of nave, aisles, and chancel, with pinnacled tower, contains several ancient monuments of the Feildings, and was restored in 1869. Another church is in Copston Magna, and is a modern edifice in the Early English style. There is also a church at Pailton. There are Congregational chapels at Easenhall and Stretton-under-Foss, and a Baptist chapel at Pailton.

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 Monks Kirby:

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

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Monks Kirby from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Kirby, Monks (St. Edith))

Land and Property

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

Maps

Online maps of Monks Kirby 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.