Alveston
Alveston

 

Origin: Eanwulf’s tun

Domesday: The same bishop (of Worcester) holds Alveston. There are 15 hides. There is land for 24 ploughs. In demesne are 2 ploughs: and 28 villans and 15 bordars and 1 female slave: these have 22 ploughs. There are 3 mills rendering 40s and 12 sticks of eels and 1000 eels. In Warwick, 4 houses rendering 16d. There is meadow 6 furlongs long and 1 furlong broad. TRE, and afterwards, it was worth £8: now £15.

 

Alveston is tucked away off the road between Stratford on Avon and Charlecote Park (NT and well worth a visit). Not much is visible from the main road but turning towards the village you pass the church which is quite attractive and relatively modern (Victorian).

The older village is down the hill. To the right is what seems to be /was the village centre with a good number of substantial old, if not ancient, houses but carrying straight on brings you to a lovely timber framed house (The Old Vicarage). Next to the house is an old graveyard with a small church type building in the centre. Clearly this was where the old church stood before the new Victorian church was built.

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The BMSGH microfiche of MIs for Alveston St James contains the following:

“The old church stands on a very ancient site where the original Saxon Church, probably a wooden structure, was built. The present building is only the Chancel of the last church created on this site, probably in the 18th century, but it incorporates features taken from a very much earlier building. The church was renovated by Mr. & Mrs W.C. Farrer in memory of their son in 1945. The oldest feature is the elaborately carved Tympanum of a 12th century doorway, with two carved capitals. This Tympanum is now of the South Wall.”

 

Although closed, peering through the window reveals some attractive wall monuments, pews and a pulpit – it would seem the church still has occasional use.

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My ancestors, the Dunnings and the Hares, lived in the village from 1650ish with my line leaving in about 1700 to go to Ansty (in Warwickshire).

If anyone has any information on the Warwickshire Dunnings, in particular where the family came from in the early 1600s, then please contact me on

 

 

 

 

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For a description of the village in the late 1800s a Whites Guide of 1850 is attached.