Heart of England Way

Balsall Preceptory in Warwickshire was a manor that was given to the Knights Templars in recognition of their service in the Crusades. The donor, according to a survey of the Templars' possessions in England in 1185, was Roger de Mowbray, son of Nigel d'Aubigny. The preceptory also governed other Templar lands, similarly donated for services in the Holy Land. These included: Chilverscoton Cubbington Fletchampstead Hermitage Herdwicke Harbury Sherbourne Studley Temple Tysoe Warwick; and Wolvey.Old Hall, though much restored, dates from the time of the Templars occupation. At the time of the suppression of the Order, eight Ballsall resident Templars were arrested, namely: John de Coningeston Thomas le Chamberlayn William de Burton William de Warewyk (chaplain) Robert de Sautre Roger de Dalton; and John de Euleye.

Temple Balsall (grid reference SP207760) is a small hamlet within the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull in the English West Midlands, situated between the large villages of Knowle (where population details as taken at the 2011 census can be found) and Balsall Common. It was formerly in Warwickshire and is on a notoriously bad series of bends on the B4101 Kenilworth Road. It is one of the oldest and most interesting sites in the borough. It is named after, and dates from the time of, the Knights Templar. They farmed about 650 acres (2.6 km2) of the estate in the 12th century, and established Balsall Preceptory where a number of brothers lived and ran the estate. After the Order was suppressed, the estate was given to the Knights Hospitaller of St John. They lost it when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries and Queen Elizabeth I gave the estate to Robert Dudley. The 13th-century church and Old Hall, and 17th-century almshouses survive. Robert Dudley's granddaughter, Lady Katharine Leveson of Trentham Hall, Staffordshire, inherited the estate. On her death in 1674, Lady Leveson left endowments for almshouses, the Lady Katharine Leveson primary school and the local church. There are only a handful of residences in the hamlet.

St Mary's Church, Temple Balsall is a parish church in the Church of England in Temple Balsall, Solihull, West Midlands, England.

Barston is a village and civil parish in Metropolitan Borough of Solihull in the West Midlands of England. It is approximately 4.5 miles (7 km) east of Solihull and is located inside a large meander of the River Blythe, at the western edge of the Meriden Gap, and midway between the far larger villages of Balsall Common and Hampton-in-Arden. The nearest large city is Birmingham, 11 miles (18 km) away to the west. According to the 2001 UK Census, the parish had a population of 499, increasing to 533 at the 2011 Census.Barston is an affluent village with many historic buildings, some of which are timber-framed. The Church of St. Swithin is a Church of England church which dates from 1721, and is built on the site of an earlier church. The village also possesses two pubs, The Bulls Head Archived 14 December 2018 at the Wayback Machine and The Malt Shovel, and about 50 residential properties. The Barston Memorial Institute, opposite the Bulls Head, hosts many village activities with a Friday night youth club and regular Art Classes as well as the Barston WI and U3A meetings. There is no bus service or any other form of public transport in the village, although an abandoned bus stop still exists at the end of the central road of Barston, Oak Lane, which is left over from an old-school service from the 1970s and 1980s. Next to the bus stop is an old-fashioned red phone box. The footballer Robbie Keane owned a house in Barston from 1999 to 2000, whilst playing for Coventry City F.C.

Royal Air Force Honiley or RAF Honiley is a former Royal Air Force station located in Wroxall, Warwickshire, 7 miles (11 km) southwest of Coventry, England. The station closed in March 1958, and after being used as a motor vehicle test track, it has been subject to planning permission from the Prodrive Formula One team for development of their Fulcrum test and development facility however this has been cancelled. From September 2014 the site has been used by Jaguar Land Rover for heritage driving experiences with the location being known as Fen End.

Balsall Common is a large village in the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull, West Midlands, England. It is situated 4.5 miles (7.5 km) northwest of Kenilworth, 7.5 miles (12.1 km) west of Coventry, 8 miles (13 km) east of Solihull and 15 miles (24 km) to the southeast of Birmingham. The name “Balsall” comes from the Anglo Saxon word “Baelle” meaning corner (or angle) of land, and “Heale” meaning a sheltered place

Chadwick End is a small village which straddles the border of Warwickshire and the West Midlands Metropolitan Borough of Solihull, situated 3 miles (5 km) southeast of the large village of Knowle and 8 miles northwest of Warwick. It is almost contiguous with the slightly larger village of Baddesley Clinton, which lies a half-mile to the south on the A4141 route. The name Chadwick means 'farm near a spring', and the village remains a farming community. The south side of the village lies within Warwickshire with the north side lying in the Borough of Solihull. The civil parish was split from part of Balsall on 1 April 2014.A mile from the village centre lies Chadwick Manor and its Estate, built in 1875 by the architect Edward Holmes (1832-1909). During the 1930s the Manor became a country-house hotel and the estate a racing-stud both owned by Scottish racehorse owner and breeder Captain. Norman (Norrie) Stewart~MacKay (1895-1980), who sold the estate in 1964 (after which the Manor was converted to luxury flats).The former Poor Clares convent on Rising Lane was founded in 1850; it has been converted into private flats since its closure in 2011.

Baddesley Clinton is a village and civil parish in Warwickshire, England, about 5+1⁄2 miles (9 km) southeast of Solihull. The village has Anglo-Saxon origins. It is believed that at some point it was settled by an Anglo-Saxon called Baeddi, Badde or Bade as a clearing in the Forest of Arden to graze cattle. Such a clearing was called a leah or ley – hence Badde's Ley which became Baddesley. Through most the medieval era, the village was part of Hampton in Arden. In 1290 it passed to the de Clinton family. The de Clintons were a powerful Norman family of the area and held Maxstoke Castle, Brandon Castle and Kenilworth Castle at various times. It was at this point that it became known as Baddesley Clinton. The village is famed for its National Trust property, Baddesley Clinton. The village also has a Grade II listed church dedicated to St Michael, which shares a Rector with St Mary the Virgin's church in the nearby parish of Lapworth.

Heart of England School is a secondary school and sixth form with academy status located in Balsall Common in the West Midlands. The Headteacher, who started at the start of the Academic year 2014, is Miss Hughes-Williams. She previously worked as a member of the school's senior leadership team.

Meriden is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2019 by Saqib Bhatti, a Conservative. It is named after the village of Meriden, halfway between Solihull and Coventry.

The A452 is a road in England, which runs from Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire to Brownhills in the West Midlands. It is the major link to the M6 motorway for both Leamington and Warwick in addition to serving as Leamington's link to the M40 motorway and to Coventry. Between Brownhills and Kenilworth it follows the line of the ancient drover's road called the Welsh Road, which probably has pre-Roman origins.

The Meriden Gap is a mostly rural area located in the West Midlands between Solihull and Coventry. It serves as a part of the wider West Midlands Green Belt, and separates the latter from the large West Midlands conurbation, which includes Birmingham and Wolverhampton. The 'Gap' takes its name from the village central to the area, Meriden, although the largest settlement is Balsall Common. The highest point lies at 181m / 594 ft above sea level, slightly north of the hamlet of Eaves Green near the West Midlands-Warwickshire border. The majority of the gap falls within the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull with a small area falling within Warwickshire and some of the northeastern part being in the City of Coventry. Other villages and hamlets within the gap include Hampton-in-Arden, Berkswell, Barston, Temple Balsall, Eastcote, Bradnocks Marsh, Millison's Wood, Eaves Green, Four Oaks, Fen End, Pickford Green and Corley Moor. The gap is largely covered by the Meriden parliamentary constituency.