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Copston Magna

Villages in WarwickshireWarwickshire geography stubs
Copston Magna geograph.org.uk 204926
Copston Magna geograph.org.uk 204926

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.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Copston Magna (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 52.491788 ° E -1.334384 °
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Address


LE17 5BA
England, United Kingdom
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Copston Magna geograph.org.uk 204926
Copston Magna geograph.org.uk 204926
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Nearby Places

High Cross, Leicestershire
High Cross, Leicestershire

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.

Wolvey
Wolvey

Wolvey is a village and parish in Warwickshire, England. According to the 2011 census it had a population of 1,942, which increased to 2,121 at the 2021 census.The village is located on the Warwickshire/Leicestershire border in an outlying part of the borough of Rugby. The village is, however, more than 11 miles (18 km) north-west from the town of Rugby and closer to Hinckley (five miles to the north), Nuneaton (six miles to the north-west) and Coventry (ten miles south-west). The source of the River Anker is near the highest point in the parish, 130 metres. Originally on the main route between Leicester and Coventry, is now served by the B4065 and B4109 roads. The hamlet of Bramcote forms a western part of the parish, This was the site of a Second World War airfield, RAF Bramcote, subsequently used by the Royal Naval Air Service and renamed HMS Gamecock. Since 1959 it has been used by the army and is known as the Gamecock Barracks. Discoveries of Neolithic flint tools and Bronze Age burial mounds suggest early occupation of the parish while a major Roman road, Watling Street, forms part of the parish boundary. The village certainly existed in Saxon times and the Domesday Survey, compiled in 1086, records 22 households with three further households at Bramcote. By the 12th century there was an additional township, which included a chapel, at the now deserted site of Little Copston (Copston Parva). At this time Wolvey was an important population centre for the area with a weekly market and an annual fair. The village still retains some older buildings including the church of St John the Baptist with its Norman doorway and monumental tombs of Thomas de Wolvey (died 1311) and his wife Alice; also that of Thomas Astley and his wife, Catherine (died 1603). The South Aisle of the church was rebuilt by Thomas de Wolvey's daughter as a memorial Chantry to her husband Sir Giles de Astley who died following the battle of Bannockburn in 1314. The church building has undergone considerable repair and alteration over the years. The chancel was rebuilt in the gothic style by Lord Overstone of Wolvey Grange in the mid-nineteenth century and the present porch to the south door added in 1909. The Millennium Building to the south of the church was built in 2000 to provide important support facilities. The early village would have clustered around the market place (now The Square) but there is little evidence of it in today's buildings.. A staircase dated 1677 in Wolvey Hall reflects the rebuilding of the original house but this was remodelled in 1889. Other late seventeenth century survivals, although modified, include Hollytree Cottage in Wolds Lane and probably 'The Blue Pig' public house with the village pump which will have served as a coaching inn for the Coventry – Leicester traffic in earlier times. The ‘Old Thatched Cottage’ on the edge of The Square dates to the later eighteenth century as does the Baptist Chapel, built in 1789. Essentially a farming community for most of its history, industrialization affected the village in the nineteenth century when knitting and weaving became important trades for a time. There is no evidence to support the popular view that it was a milling centre with 27 windmills. The well-known engraving of four windmills in Wolvey, published in 1854 by Thomas Dugdale, has been shown to be a forgery and was based on an earlier print of windmills on Montmartre, Paris. While rural industry continues, modern housing provides for a commuting population benefiting from the village's proximity to major motorway and rail networks and urban centres. The name Wolvey most probably came from the Anglo-Saxon wulf-hæg or wulf-heg e = "wolf hedge" = "enclosure with a hedge to keep wolves out".

Britannia Fields

The Britannia Fields are a public open space at grid reference SP440919 in Britannia Road, Burbage, Leicestershire. The Fields land was once part of the ancient three field system which operated in Burbage during Medieval times. The hedge row at the western hedge of the field represented one boundary, and is one of the oldest hedges in Burbage at least 600 years. By 1838 on the tithe map of the village, number 651, the land was owned by Joseph Freeman, who gave his name to Freeman’s lane. This was pasture land known as Home Close which measured 2 acres 3 rods 22 poles (2.89 acres (11,700 m2)), and was let to Thomas Dowell. 18 shillings and 1d (£0.90) was paid in tithes to the church. In the 1930s, the area was used as playing fields for various local football teams. Britannia Buildings was originally a hosiery factory of Moore, Eady Murcott & Goode, built on the edge of the land in 1890s. At the start of World War II, the building was requisitioned and was home to a number of squadrons including a medical corps. Later a tank battalion which practised battle exercises on the playing fields. The most significant guests were the 307 Airborne Engineers of the U.S.A. 82 Airborne Division who were housed, and trained here from Feb to June 1944 prior to the D-Day landings. They often trained and played baseball on the field. Some of the survivors’ visited the site in June 2004 for the 60th D Day Anniversary. A number of temporary wood huts were erected as barracks for the troops which after the war were used as temporary housing up to the early 1950s when they were finally demolished. In 1951, these buildings were converted to a territorial barracks for D squadron Prince Albert’s own Leicestershire Yeomanry which used the area for training. By the 1970s, the barracks had become Britannia Buildings and houses a number of small businesses. Currently the area is used mainly for community events such as carnivals, fireworks, rugby, scouting and young children's play. The yearly summer carnival which is held on the Britannia fields, is organised by the Burbage carnival committee, whose purpose is to raise funds to donate to local good causes. This has been a very popular community event and has caused in over 1/2 million pounds for good causes. The carnival committee also runs the Burbage bonfire and fireworks display held on Britannia fields - all to support local charities. Sporting Uses: Britannia Fields is also the home pitch of Burbage RFC since 1984, and along with the Red Lion pub forms the club's home ground and clubhouse.