Polesworth
Polesworth photos (11 available)
Polesworth maps (2 available)
Map of Staffordshire
Beautifully hand-drawn and coloured, dating from around 1840
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Personalised maps
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Polesworth books (8 available)
- 2 photos on Polesworth appear in 1 Frith books - View photos of Polesworth
- Read extracts and see photos from these books on Polesworth and Staffordshire
Polesworth memories
Read and share memories of Polesworth and Staffordshire inspired by Frith photos
Change of ownership
I bought the proerty named "The Gatehouse", being the timber framed buiding to the left of the gateway, in 2007. There are various records in the church archives which relate to the building being ariginally being built for the nuns and at one time being occupied by royalist soldiers during the civil war.
The gatehouse was built in 1482 with the 3 cottages next door being added in the 1520s.
The gateway is still owned by the church and is due for restoration shortly.
I will amend this entry as I research the history more fully.
Contributed by Bob Lodge
Kevin Devine Remembers Little Jim's Cottage
In the early 1960s as a small boy, this was the home of my grandmother and grandfather, Hilda and John Guy. I remember going to visit them with my mother, Cynthia Joan Devine, formerly Guy.
I used to love running around the garden with their little terrier called Betty and around the pond you can see in the picture.
My grandparents had a chicken shed, and I was allowed in the morning to go and collect the eggs.
While I was there I was often allowed to stay up much later than normal and remember sleeping upstairs and hearing the adults talking downstairs.
Very sadly my grandfather, shortly followed by my grandmother, passed away and they are buried in Poleswoth churchyard ...read more here
Contributed by Victoria Devine
our yesterdays relatives
I have found over the past few weeks that nearly all my relatives from my fathers side began in Polesworth. There was James Scarratt Clifford 1780 married Sarah Bullows in 1803, my ggg grandmother was Caroline Clifford who gave birth in Poleswoth to John Ordish Clifford (he saddled me with the second name Ordish, this I am trying to find out why?) who was a policeman (inspector retired) in 1850 in London.
There are so many distant relatives who were baptised and married in the church at Polesworth, that a visit will have to be made to look at all the church records at Warwick where I believe they are held.
So I am looking for anybody who has the name ...read more here
Contributed by nigel ordish clifford
Staffordshire memories
Kevin Devine Remembers Little Jim's Cottage
In the early 1960s as a small boy, this was the home of my grandmother and grandfather, Hilda and John Guy. I remember going to visit them with my mother, Cynthia Joan Devine, formerly Guy.
I used to love running around the garden with their little terrier called Betty and around the pond you can see in the picture.
My grandparents had a chicken shed, and I was allowed in the morning to go and collect the eggs.
While I was there I was often allowed to stay up much later than normal and remember sleeping upstairs and hearing the adults talking downstairs.
Very sadly my grandfather, shortly followed by my grandmother, passed away and they are buried in Poleswoth churchyard ...read more here
A memory of Polesworth contributed by Victoria Devine
Extracts From Polesworth & Staffordshire books
The Abbey Church of St Editha dates from Norman times, but Polesworth Abbey is said to have been founded by King
Egbert in 827. He installed his daughter (some say his sister) Editha as its first abbess. The church contains an effigy of an
abbess dating from c1200. While too late to represent Editha, it is said to be the earliest effigy of an abbess in England.
An extract from from"Warwickshire Revisited Photographic Memories".
Pooley Hall was built by Thomas Cockayne between 1506 and 1509 on the site of a much older house. It has an embattled
tower with a stair turret, and is built of red brick with stone mullions and quoins. Though it is a highly unlikely story, there
are said to be secret passages connecting Pooley Hall to Polesworth Abbey.
An extract from from"Warwickshire Revisited Photographic Memories".
Like the nearby village of Alvecote, Polesworth
was once a mining area. Construction of the
Coventry Canal began in the late 1760s;
the objective was to link industrial Coventry
with the coalfield around Bedworth and
to open a navigation to the Grand Trunk
(Trent & Mersey) Canal. The parish
church incorporates some of the remains of a
10th-century abbey; the most substantial part
is the old gatehouse.
An extract from from"Warwickshire Pocket Album".
Polesworth has developed on
both sides of the River Anker,
with the original Saxon
settlement on the north bank.
The photographer in this
instance was looking across
to the south bank, recording
for posterity a scene which
no longer exists: only the
bridge survives. It was built in
1776 and widened in 1924.
An extract from from"Warwickshire Revisited Photographic Memories".
The canal reached Atherstone in 1771; by this time all the authorised
capital had been spent and James Brindley sacked. The canal eventually
reached a junction with the Frazeley & Birmingham Canal in 1790.
Despite the delays in completing the cut, it remained one of the most
profitable of England’s waterways, paying dividends up to 1947.
An extract from from"Warwickshire Pocket Album".