Wibtoft

High Cross is the name given to the crossroads of the Roman roads of Watling Street and Fosse Way on the border between Leicestershire and Warwickshire, England. The parish boundaries of four villages meet at High Cross: the Warwickshire villages of Wibtoft and Copston Magna (historically part of Monks Kirby parish) and the Leicestershire parishes of Sharnford and Claybrooke Parva (historically part of the single Claybrooke parish with the closely adjacent village of Claybrooke Magna). High Cross was the site of a Romano-British settlement known as Venonae or Venonis, with a nearby fort. The remains of Venonis fort lies beneath the surface in a field to the south-east of the crossroads adjacent to the tree line and are visible from satellite images. The location of the fort was also shown on a map drawn by William Stukely in the eighteenth century when structures were more clearly visible . Excavations were carried out by Arthur Pickering in the 1930s in the region of the crossroads but not the area of the fort itself.High Cross stone monument was built in 1712. Funded by the Earl of Denbigh it celebrated the victories against France by the Duke of Blenheim as well as marking the centre of Roman Britain. It consisted of four Doric columns with an orb and cross above. It was struck by lightning in 1791 and only the plinth remains today. The stone monument was preceded by a wooden cross and was the site of a medieval gibbet. In modern times, this section of Watling Street is now a dual carriageway section of the A5, the southern part of the Fosse Way is a B road, and the northern route of the Fosse is now a track which is a part of a long-distance path called the Leicestershire Round.High Cross is depicted on the coat of arms of Blaby District Council, which is the local authority for the area. Two black diagonal lines on the shield represent Fosse Way and Watling Street.

Wigston Parva is a hamlet and civil parish in the Blaby district of Leicestershire, England. The parish has a population of about 30. It is very near the county boundary with Warwickshire. Nearby places include Smockington, and Sharnford. The population of the hamlet at the 2011 census was included in the civil parish of Stanton and Flamville.

Claybrooke Magna is a village and civil parish in the Harborough district of Leicestershire, England, close to the A5 trunk road. The village is located between junctions 20 and 21 of the M1, and the towns of Leicester, Rugby, Lutterworth and Market Harborough are easily accessible.

The Monks Kirby Rural District was a rural district of Warwickshire between 1894 and 1932, based on the part of the Lutterworth Rural Sanitary District which was in Warwickshire. Its council was based in the village of Monks Kirby. The district consisted of six civil parishes of Copston Magna Monks Kirby Pailton Stretton-under-Fosse Wibtoft WilleyDue to its small size (its population was recorded as 1,456 in 1931) the district was abolished in 1932 and merged into the Rugby Rural District, under the review caused by the Local Government Act 1929. The area is now part of the present borough of Rugby.

Claybrooke Parva is a village and civil parish in the Harborough district south west Leicestershire, England close to Claybrooke Magna. The village is the site of a church which is thought to originally be part Anglo Saxon with Norman and Medieval additions. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 208.The village's name means 'brook with clayey soil'.

Copston Magna is a very small village and civil parish in the Rugby borough of Warwickshire, England. It is located around 9 miles (14 km) northwest of the town of Rugby, 6 miles (9.7 km) southeast of Nuneaton. Though it is only 1.5 miles (2.4 km) east of the larger village of Wolvey, Copston Magna was historically part of the parish of Monks Kirby, 3.5 miles (5.6 km) to the south. Copston is located close to the ancient site of High Cross, on the border between Warwickshire and Leicestershire, where the Roman roads of Watling Street and Fosse Way cross each other. In the 2001 Census, the parish had a population of 38. At the 2011 census population details were included with Wolvey. Though the village is often referred to just as "Copston" the name Copston Magna distinguishes the settlement from Copston Parva, an abandoned medieval settlement in Wolvey. Copston first enters the historical record following the Norman Conquest when, in 1077, a priory was established in Monks Kirby. The vill of Copston was part of the endowment given to the new Priory. It is likely that the present Copston church site housed an oratory in the medieval period. Following the Reformation the Earls of Denbigh came to own the land that had belonged to the Priory (see Monks Kirby). The most notable building in Copston Magna today is the Anglican St John's Church built in 1849. Though it is assumed this replaced a medieval chapel, no trace of the older building survives. The church was built by the sisters of Rudolph Feilding, 8th Earl of Denbigh, who opposed the Earl's conversion to Catholicism. It is a grade II* listed building.

Willey is a rural village and civil parish in the English county of Warwickshire. The parish had a population of 148 as of the 2021 census.Willey is the only village in Warwickshire to have a name likely of pre-Christian origin. The name is thought to derive from the Old English weoh which means "temple or holy place," which may therefore mean the village was the site of such a temple or shrine.Administratively, Willey forms part of the borough of Rugby; geographically it is about six miles (10 km) north of Rugby, just west of the A5 road (Watling Street) that marks the county boundary with Leicestershire. Just to the east of the village are the remains of the dismantled Rugby to Leicester railway line.The village church of St Leonard in Willey is Grade II* listed.The village pub in Willey was called the "Sarah Mansfield"; it gained that name in the 1970s, when the then licensee named it in memory of his grandmother. The pub had previously named "The Plough". In 2020 it was bought by Adam Taylor, husband of Carly Taylor, the owner of the famous Crooked House pub in Staffordshire. In September 2020, the new owners internally gutted the pub before any planning applications could be made, resulting in an order to stop by Rugby Borough Council. The pub has not reopened.

Bittesby is a deserted village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Bitteswell with Bittesby, in the Harborough district of Leicestershire, England. It is near the A5 Watling Street, about three miles from Lutterworth. The site of the village was adjacent to the route of the now disused Midland Railway. According to the 2001 census the parish had a population of 6. The name 'Bittesby' means 'farm/settlement of Byttel'.Bittesby was recorded in the Domesday Book as having 25 families resident. The village was depopulated in 1494. Hollow ways and house platforms remain on the site today. To the north of the site is an area of faced stonework, indicating the site of a chapel.The deserted medieval village of Bittesby was identified in 1945 by Maurice Beresford. It is a scheduled ancient monument. Bittesby was formerly a liberty in Claybrooke parish, from 1866 Bittesby was a civil parish in its own right until it was abolished on 1 April 2014 and merged with Bitteswell to form "Bitteswell with Bittesby".

Sharnford is a village and civil parish in Blaby of Leicestershire. The parish has a population of about 1,000, measured at the 2011 census as 985. The village is about four miles east of Hinckley, and is near to Aston Flamville, Wigston Parva and Sapcote.

Monks Kirby is a village and civil parish in north-eastern Warwickshire, England. The population of the parish is 445. Monks Kirby is located around one mile east of the Fosse Way, around 8 miles north-west of Rugby, seven miles north-east of Coventry and six miles west of Lutterworth. Administratively it forms part of the borough of Rugby. One of the largest and most important villages in this part of Warwickshire in the Anglo-Saxon and later medieval period, the village continued to be a local administrative centre into the early 20th century. The parish boundaries include two important landed estates: Newnham Paddox, seat of the family of the Earls of Denbigh since the 15th century and Newbold Revel, home of the medieval writer Sir Thomas Malory. Monks Kirby is today a small, attractive, wealthy commuter village with many residents working in Coventry, Birmingham, Leicester and London. Monks Kirby is dominated by the church of St Edith, a site of Christian worship since at least the 10th century and which functioned as a Priory in the Middle Ages. Reflecting its medieval aristocratic and ecclesiastical importance, Monks Kirby is the largest historic parish in Warwickshire and St Edith's one of the largest parish churches in the county.

Monks Kirby Priory was a Benedictine priory established in 1077 in Monks Kirby, Warwickshire, England. The priory was suppressed in 1415 when its estates and revenues were given to the Carthusian priory of Axholme in Lincolnshire, in whose possession they continued until the Reformation. Remains of the priory form part of Monks Kirby village church today.

Ullesthorpe railway station was a railway station serving Ullesthorpe in Leicestershire, England. The station was opened on 30 June 1840 on the Midland Counties Railway main line to Rugby. In 1844 the Midland Counties joined the North Midland Railway and the Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway to form the Midland Railway. Originally named Ullesthorpe, the station was renamed several times: on 1 May 1879 it became Ullesthorpe for Lutterworth, being amended to Ullesthorpe and Lutterworth on 1 August 1897 before reverting to the original name on 1 February 1930.In 1857 the Midland completed a new main line south to Hitchin and the Leicester – Rugby section of the Midland Counties was relegated to a branch. British Railways closed the Leicester – Rugby line and its stations, including Ullesthorpe which closed on 1 January 1962.