Aston le Walls

Origins: Aston = eastern tun, Le Walls = some early entrenchments

Domesday: Mauger holds of Geoffrey 6 hides in Aston le Walls. There is land for 10 ploughs. In demesne are 3 ploughs, and 5 slaves and 15 villans and 5 bordars have 6 ploughs. There are 12 acres of meadow. It was worth 100s now £6.

A small village clustered to one side of the Lower Boddington to Culworth road (named the Welsh Road on my OS map). Mainly built of stone and with an agricultural feel to the place - the smell at least was distinctly agricultural on the day I was there but perhaps I shouldn't blame the cows I see the Sewage Works is immediately adjacent on my map.


	I was surprised to see not only a parish church but also a RC church (and school). What justified building a RC church in this small village is not at all clear, it is evidently not a major centre nor does it sit at the centre of road routes which might have served parishioners from adjacent villages.

		The C of E church stands at the other end of the village, small, well kept and, I suspect, "modernised" by the Victorians inside. The font is unusual that it is square, the stained glass simple (sort of single colours in a Harlequin mosaic) and the altar piece quite impressive.

Further out of the village lies the hamlet (deserted mediaeval village) of Appletree which is where my ancestors the Sears lived in the late 1600s. The Sears I have found remarkable elusive to trace so if you have any sightings of the name in the surrounding areas (which could be Northamptonshire, Warwickshire or Oxfordshire) I would be pleased to hear from you


	For a description of the village in the late 1800s a Whelans Directory of 1874 is attached.