Hartshill, Warwickshire

Historical Description

Hartshill, a village, a township, and an ecclesiastical parish in Warwickshire. The village stands on the river Anker, on the end of a hilly plain, near Watling Street, the Coventry Canal, and the boundary with Leicestershire, 2 miles NW of Stockingford station on the M.R., 3 S of Atherstone station on the L. & N.W.R., and 3 NNW of Nnneaton, and is supposed to occupy the Campus Martins of the Roman Man-duessedum, and commands a view in which are seen 45 parish churches. It has a post and money order office under Atherstone; telegraph office, Stockingford station. The township comprises 1565 acres; population, 1485. It includes Chapel End, a colliery village which has a post office under Atherstone. The manor was given at the Conquest to Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, whose descendant took the name of de Har-dreshull in the reign of Henry L, and held possession till the failure of the male line in the reign of Edward III. Ruins exist of a Norman castle, built in 1125 by Hugh de Hardreshull. A large wood extends from the W side of the village nearly to the camp at Oldbury. Excellent road-metal is quarried, greenstone and iron-ore abound, and manganese and copper ore are found. Ribbon-making was formerly carried on, but is now almost extinct. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Worcester; net value, £185 with residence. The church is a modern edifice in the Norman style. There are Congregational and Wesleyan chapels, a Friends' meeting-house, and two endowed Nonconformist schools. Michael Drayton, the poet, was a native.

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 Hartshill:

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

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Hartshill from the following:

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

Land and Property

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

Maps

Online maps of Hartshill 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.