Monks Kirby Rural District

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.

Pailton is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Rugby, Warwickshire, England. Its population in 2001 was recorded as 482, increasing at the 2011 Census to 516. The village was originally known as Pailington. Pailton is located approximately five miles northwest of Rugby and about five miles southwest of Lutterworth. It lies at a crossroads of three roads, one towards Rugby to the south, one towards Lutterworth to the east, and Nuneaton and Coventry towards the west. The former White Lion pub which ceased trading early in 2014 is one of the largest buildings in the village, through much of the twentieth century there were three pubs in the village (The White Lion, The Plough, both former coaching inns, and The Fox). At the crossroads is the village green with a recently restored war memorial. About one mile east of Pailton is a radio station operated by the United Kingdom's National Air Traffic Services and is used for measurement and calibration purposes. The village church of St. Denys is built of red brick and dates from 1884.

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.

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.

Wibtoft is a small village and civil parish in north-eastern Warwickshire, England. The village was originally within the civil parish of Claybrooke Magna in Leicestershire and is mostly an agricultural community. According to the 2021 Census, it had a population of 62.The village is next to the A5 road (Watling Street), which here defines the border between Warwickshire and Leicestershire. Wibtoft is about 8 miles (13 km) north of Rugby and is in an outlying part of the Borough of Rugby. About half a mile north of Wibtoft is High Cross (Veronae), the point at which the old Roman roads of Watling Street and Fosse Way cross. Near Wibtoft is the source of the River Soar.Due to its location in a sheltered valley just south of High Cross, and local finds of Roman coins and stonework, some historians have speculated that it sits upon the site of a Roman settlement; William Dugdale believed that it occupied the site of the Roman town of Cleychester.Wibtoft consists of a single narrow road called Green Lane. Due to its small size it has neither shops nor pubs, but does have a small church dedicated to St Mary The ecclesiastical parish crosses the county boundary and is 'Claybrooke cum Wibtoft' and thus falls in the Diocese of Leicester. The name of the village has Danish origin, and was mentioned in the Domesday Book as Wibetot.

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".

Harborough Magna is a village and civil parish in Warwickshire, England. The civil parish which also contains the nearby hamlets of Harborough Parva and Cathiron, had a population of 502 at the 2011 Census, decreasing to 481 at the 2021 Census.Harborough Magna is located around four miles northwest of Rugby on the B4112 road, and is part of the borough of Rugby. The M6 motorway lies about one mile north of the village, and the Oxford Canal about one mile south. Harborough Magna was to be the site of a motorway service station, first planned in 1975, on the M6 (the partially constructed slip roads are visible between the B4112 and Montilo Lane bridges), but the allocated site was too small, and the plans were scrapped in 1980.Harborough Magna was mentioned in the Domesday Book as Herdeberge. For many years the main source of employment in the village were sawmills near the canal at Cathiron. The village has a mixture of old and modern housing. There are a number of old houses in the village, some dating to the 17th century, and a pub known as the Old Lion (formerly known as the Golden Lion) which dates from the 18th century, and which was rebuilt following a fire in 1986. There is a village church dedicated to All Saints.The hamlet of Harborough Parva, a short distance to the south of Harborough Magna, was historically a separate settlement, which was within the parish of Newbold-on-Avon until 1931. The two Harboroughs are now adjoined, and practically form a single entity.Around one mile north-east of the village, within the parish is the St Mary's nursing home for the elderly. It was originally built in 1912 as an isolation hospital. Despite its remote location, between 1949 and 1983 it was a maternity hospital, and served as the only one in the Rugby area until this service was moved to St Cross Hospital.

Newbold Revel refers to an existing 18th-century country house and a historic manorial estate in North East Warwickshire. In the fifteenth century, the estate was the home of the medieval author Sir Thomas Malory. The house is today used by HM Prison Service as a training college; it is a Grade II* listed building. Historically, the Newbold Revel estate and house formed a significant part of the parish of Monks Kirby. Today the country house is in the modern parish of Stretton-under-Fosse, in the borough of Rugby. The current house was built in 1716 for Sir Fulwar Skipwith, 2nd Baronet and was constructed of brick in three stories to an H-shaped plan with an 11-bay frontage. In the late 19th century the ground floor was extended forwards.

Easenhall is a small village and civil parish in Warwickshire, England, three miles north-west of the town of Rugby and a mile south of the M6 motorway. According to the 2011 Census the parish had a population of 291, reducing to 255 at the 2021 Census.Easenhall lies on a country lane between the villages of Harborough Magna one mile to the east, and Brinklow two miles to the west. It was originally an estate village of the aristocratic Newbold Revel estate. It is thought likely that the name of the village is derived from "OEsa's Hill" with the name being first recorded in the 13th century registers as Esenhull, Esenhill, Hessenhull and similar spellings.From the Anglo-Saxon period to the 19th century the village, as part of the Newbold Revel estate, was part of the very large parish of Monks Kirby. Since the nineteenth century parish reforms Easenhall has been a separate civil parish, but is now part of the ecclesiastical parish of Harborough Magna.There is a former Congregational Chapel on the Main Street in the village, dating from 1873, which is now used as the village hall. Another notable building on Main Street is the Golden Lion pub which dates from 1640.The West Coast Main Line railway and Oxford Canal pass through the parish to the south of the village, the parish also includes the hamlet of Hungerfield.

Cestersover is a deserted village in Warwickshire, England, now in the civil parish of Pailton.

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.

Stretton-under-Fosse is a village and civil parish in the English county of Warwickshire. In 2001 its population was recorded as 185, increasing to 234 at the 2011 Census. The village contains a number of old cottages along its main street. Just outside Stretton is an old manor house, Newbold Revel, which is currently used as a training college for prison officers. Nearby is the Oxford Canal and a canal arm leading to Stretton Wharf. Stretton means "settlement on a Roman road" (from the Old English stræt and tun). In this case the road is Fosse Way.