Great Packington, Warwickshire: One Place Study.
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Maxstoke, Warwickshire.
Great Packington, or Packington Magna, is to the south of the hamlet of Maxstoke, a parish with residents dispersed amongst a number of small hamlets and isolated farmsteads such as Maxstoke Farm and Duke's End Cottages. Maxstoke was the site of an Augustinian priory until the Dissolution of the monasteries (1538), has a medieval parish church, St. Michael and All Angels, and is the location of Maxstoke Castle. It also had a mill house, railway station and school for the local farmers children.
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Maxstoke features in the Domesday Book (1086) where it is called Machitone and belonged to Turchil de Warwick. It was then in the possession of the Lords of Long Itchington and Solihull before being purchased by William de Odingsells in the time of King Henry III. It was recorded as Makestoke in Pipe Rolls of Henry III's reign and Assize Rolls of the 1240s. When William de Odingsells died without issue, his sister Ida de Clinton née de Odingsells inherited Maxstoke.
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The Augustinian Maxstoke priory was established in 1331 and was completed in 1343, relatively late for an Augustinian foundation. It featured a church, cloisters and other domestic buildings for 12 canons, an infirmary and a gatehouse, but little remains today. After the Dissolution of the monasteries the land was granted to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, who sold it it a London goldsmith named Thomas Tapps. The Prior's lodging was then converted to a farm house (the panelled ceilings retained the painted arms of the abbots) and the infirmary became a cheese store room.
​St. Michael and All Angels Church is located beside the ruins of the Augustine Priory. The churchyard has the remains of a preaching cross and an outdoor crucifix. The church was restored in Georgian times.
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Credit: Our Warwickshire.
Maxstoke Castle was built in 1345 by Sir William de Clinton, 1st Earl of Huntingdon, the son of Ida de Clinton née de Odingsells and her husband John de Clinton. It was intended for his nephew John de Clinton, who served King Richard II and was also granted Warwick Castle after the attainer and banishment of Thomas Beauchamp, 12th Earl of Warwick and Lord Appellant, in 1397. Maxstoke Castle was held by the de Clintons until it was exchanged with Humphrey, Earl of Stafford, for manors in Northamptonshire.
Maxstoke castle was constructed from red sandstone and featured four octagonal towers with embattled parapets (allowed due to the grant of a licence to crenallate the building), a vaulted basement, a gatehouse, a portcullis and a drawbridge, most of which are still largely intact today. The grounds had fishponds for the breeding and storing of fish and a sunken garden. The castle and courtyard is encompassed by a five foot thick curtain wall, and then a large moat.
Inside the castle, it houses a 'Whispering Door' (two doors with a common jamb) brought from the now ruined Kenilworth Castle and a table owned by Sir Everard Digby, the first Gunpowder plot conspirator to be executed. Maxstoke Castle also holds the 15th-century chair upon which King Henry VII was crowned after his victory at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, as his mother Margaret Beaufort lived in the castle during her marriage to Sir Henry Stafford, second son of the Duke of Buckingham. Sir William Compton, a favourite of King Henry VII, held Maxstoke from 1521, then sold it to Sir Thomas Egerton.
The Dilke family purchased the castle in 1599. During the English Civil War, Maxstoke Castle was garrisoned for Parliamentary troops after William Dilke was obliged to pledge £2,000 that the Castle would not be occupied by Royalist troops. ​A fire damaged the castle in 1762, an extension was built on the west wall and further alterations were made in the 1820s.
The Castle was requisitioned as an auxiliary hospital by the Red Cross in the Great War.
The castle is now a Scheduled Ancient Monument and Grade I listed building, but can be visited during National Garden's Week and on a Historic Houses Association tour. It remains in the possession of the Fetherston-Dilke family.
Credit: Ebay.
Maxstoke had a Victorian school established in 1845, called the 'Maxstoke Endowed School' and was paid for by voluntary subscriptions. It became a Church of England school and was enlarged during the 1910s, but closed in 1967 due to lack of pupils.
More recently, there was a railway station in Maxstoke for the Stonebridge Railway line. but this was closed in the 1930s. When in operation the station was called Coleshill, not Maxstoke!
Very few modern dwellings have been built in the parish, with the exception of some bungalows on Castle Lane, so it retains a historic charm and character.
Sources:
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British Listed Buildings.
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Child-Villiers, Margaret Elizabeth. (1869) Some account of Maxstoke, its priory and castle. Coventry: Curtis and Beamish.
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Doubleday, A. H. and Page, W. (1947) The Victoria History of the County of Warwick. Vol 4. London: Dawsons of Pall Mall.
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Ebay.
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Fetherston-Dike, Charles B. (1983) A short history of Maxstoke Castle and its owners.
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Historic England.
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Historic Houses.
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Maxstoke Castle.
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Maxstoke Parish Council.
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Moore, Susan K. (2005) Bare Bottoms and Stinging Nettles. Fillongley: Fillongley Publications.
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National Open Gardens Scheme.
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Nuneaton and North Warwickshire Family History Society (NNWFHS).
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Our Warwickshire.
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Salter, Mike. (1992) Castles and Moated Mansions of Warwickshire. Folly Publications.
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University of Nottingham: Survey of English Place-Names.
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Warwickshire Railways.
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Warwickshire Record Office.