Origin: Cots of Wilmund’s people

Domesday: The Count of Meulan holds 3 hides and Ingulf and Arnulf hold of him. Leonoth held them and was a free man.There is land for 6 ploughs. There are 11 villans and 5 bordars with 2 smiths having 3 ½ ploughs. There is woodland 1 league long and a half broad: it is worth 5s, and the forge 5s. It is worth 30s

Although I have had ancestors living in Wilnecote since the mid 1700s there is little to indicate that the town has much of a history. Virtually all the housing is red brick and seems to date from the 1890s with plenty of plaques etc built into the brickwork to confirm the date. I found no existing buildings that would significantly predate this. The parish records for Wilnecote are contained in the Tamworth Registers with the exception of a limited number in a small separate book perhaps pointing to a chapellry at Wilnecote parented on Tamworth.

The village straddles the Watling Street (old A5) the main road from London to the North West and this hardly helps the look of the place. However in recent years the A5 has been diverted round a new by pass so it is quieter than it once was and there are signs of more modern (1990s?) housing developments perhaps reflecting the less busy roads and a slightly more desirable location. The village is now pretty much indistinguishable from adjacent villages and hamlets which now make up Tamworth. Amongst these hamlets is Dosthill where my maternal grandmother, Bertha Thompson, lived, the family having moved from Wilnecote where their ancestors had lived since 1769 and had been engaged in brickworking and/or tilemaking.

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