Wolston, Warwickshire
Historical Description
Wolston, a village and a parish in Warwickshire. The village stands on the river Avon, half a mile SE of Brandon and Wolston station on the L. & N.W.R., 6 miles SE of Coventry, and 7 W of Rugby, and has a post, money order, and telegraph omce under Coventry. The parish includes Brandon and Bretford township, and comprises 4798 acres; population, 1114. The manor with Wolston House belongs to the Wilcox family. An alien priory, a cell to Dinan in Normandy, was founded here after the Norman Conquest, was given by Richard II. to Coventry priory, and is now a farmhouse. Brandon Manor with Brandon Hall belongs to the Beech family. There are slight remains of Brandon Castle, built soon after the Conquest by Geoffrey de Clinton. There are silk mills and a working-men's club at Brandon. The family of Clarke have been connected with Wolston since an early date, one of them took part in the Savoy Conference in 16B1, another was the well-known annotator, and several have been vicars of the parish. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Worcester; net value, £400 with residence. The church is a cruciform edifice partly Norman, and was repaired in 1860. There is a Baptist chapel.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
| Ancient County | Warwickshire | |
| Ecclesiastical parish | Wolstan St. Margaret | |
| Hundred | Knightlow | |
| Poor Law union | Rugby |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The Warwickshire County Record Office hold the following registers for Wolston:
| Baptisms | Marriages | Burials |
|---|---|---|
| 1558-1983 | 1558-2000 | 1558-1978 |
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 Wolston from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Wolstan (St. Margaret))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Warwickshire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Wolston 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:
Visitations Heraldic
The Visitation of Warwickshire 1619 is available on the Heraldry page.