Place:Wolfhampcote, Warwickshire, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Wolfhampcote is an abandoned village and civil parish in the English counties of Warwickshire and Northamptonshire, which it straddles. The civil parish of Wolfhampcote in Rugby borough, includes the old village, plus the nearby village of Flecknoe, and the small hamlets of Sawbridge and Nethercote. In 2001, the parish had a population of 263, increasing to 284 in the 2011 Census. Flecknoe is the largest settlement in the parish.

The old village of Wolfhampcote is west of the A45 road near Braunston in Northamptonshire, and can be reached by a track from the main A45 road, or by a lane from Flecknoe. The village was abandoned sometime in the late 14th century and is classified as a deserted medieval village. Local legend suggests that the village was wiped out by the Black Death brought in by refugees from London, but there is no evidence to support this. It is much more likely that a few cottages still remained after the great plague and after struggling to maintain their land the villagers drifted off to more prosperous places leaving the Lord of the Manor to clear the land for sheep grazing as best he could. The village is shown as Wulfencote on the Christopher Saxton map of 1637.

Today the only remains of the village are a cottage, a farmhouse, and the old vicarage, located some distance away. The most notable surviving feature of the village is the Church of St Peter, which stands apparently in the middle of nowhere in a field. The church has been restored on several occasions, most recently in the 1970s by an organisation called the Friends of Friendless Churches. The church is today managed by the Churches Conservation Trust and is used only once or twice a year.

The area around the old village is rich in industrial archaeology. The Oxford Canal passes to the north of the site, but this section is the result of a straightening-out dating from the 1830s, the more southerly original route (constructed in the 1770s) having followed a much more winding course, remains of which can still be traced through the area. There are also the remains of two abandoned railway lines, the first being the old Weedon to Leamington Spa (via Daventry) railway, part of the London and North Western Railway (later the LMS), which closed to passengers in September 1958 and to freight in December 1963, and the second being the Great Central Main Line, which closed to all traffic in September 1966. The former passes quite close to the south side of the church. The two lines crossed a short distance to the west.

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Wolfhampcote from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"WOLFHAMCOTE, a parish, with three hamlets [unnamed], in Rugby district, Warwick; 3½ miles NW of Daventry, and 5 SW of Crick [railway] station. Post town: Rugby. Acres: 3,470. Real property: £7,698. Population: 444. Houses: 95. The property is subdivided. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Worcester. Value: £90. Patron: Lady Hood. The church is good; and there are a Wesleyan chapel and a national school."

Wolfhampcote was originally an ancient parish in the Knightlow Hundred of Warwickshire, England.

It was made a civil parish in 1866 and in 1894 it became part of the Rugby Rural District. Although the main village is abandoned, since 1974 the civil parish has been part of the non-metropolitan Rugby District. The other two hamlets in the parish are, according to the Ordnance Survey map of 1935, Flecknoe and Sawbridge.

Flecknoe

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Flecknoe is a village in the Rugby district of Warwickshire, England, one mile west of the border with Northamptonshire. The village is the largest settlement within the civil parish of Wolfhampcote, and has a population of around 200. The village was mentioned in the Domesday Book as Flachenho, probably meaning "Flecca's hill". The village is shown as Fleckno on the Christopher Saxton map of 1637.

Flecknoe is quite an isolated village, it is located on a hill called Bush Hill, one mile north of the nearest main road (the A425 road Southam - Daventry road) and is connected only by narrow lanes. Flecknoe has a small church, dedicated to St. Mark, which was built in 1891. An older chapel in the village dating from 1837 is now a private house. The village formerly had a school, which is now the village hall. On the outskirts of the village is a derelict brick building which is wrongly attributed to be the remains of a Second World War camp.^[1] The building is, in fact, the remains of a grain drying tower which supported the extensive wheat farming activity in the area. The village also has an Edwardian pub called the Old Olive Bush.

The Grand Union Canal runs in the plain to the north of the village,^[1] which also contains the remain of the former Weedon to Leamington railway line. Flecknoe once had a railway station on this line. The station was over a mile north of the village and effectively in the middle of nowhere, consequently it was an early victim of British Railways' closure programme, the last passenger train running on 3 November 1952. However, the line survived carrying freight until 2 December 1963. To the east of the village are the remains of the former Great Central Main Line. Around half a mile to the north of Flecknoe is the tiny hamlet of Nethercote. Flecknoe village is home to the Flecknoe Falcons cricket club, currently captained by Erling Lindoe V of Norway.

Research Tips

• GENUKI main page for Warwickshire provides information on various topics covering the whole of the county, and also a link to a list of parishes. Under each parish there is a list of the settlements within it and brief description of each. This is a list of pre-1834 ancient or ecclesiastical parishes but there are suggestions as to how to find parishes set up since then. GENUKI provides references to other organizations who hold genealogical information for the local area. There is no guarantee that the website has been kept up to date and therefore the reader should check additional sources if possible.
• Warwickshire and West Midland family history societies are listed in GENUKI.
• The FamilyTree Wiki has a series of pages similar to those provided by GENUKI which may have been prepared at a later date and from more recent data. The wiki has a link to English Jurisdictions 1851. There is a list of all the parishes in existence at that date with maps indicating their boundaries. The website is very useful for finding the ecclesiastical individual parishes within large cities and towns.
• A Vision of Britain through Time, Warwickshire, section "Units and Statistics" leads to analyses of population and organization of the county from about 1800 through 1974. There are pages available for all civil parishes, municipal boroughs and other administrative divisions. Descriptions provided are usually based on a gazetteer of 1870-72 which often provides brief notes on the economic basis of the settlement and significant occurences through its history.
• The two maps below indicate the boundaries between parishes, etc., but for a more detailed view of a specific area try a map from this selection. The oldest series are very clear at the third magnification offered. Comparing the map details with the GENUKI details for the same area is well worthwhile.

• Map of Warwickshire illustrating urban and rural districts in 1900 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time. Parish boundaries and settlements within parishes are shown.
• Map of Warwickshire urban and rural districts in 1944 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time. Parish boundaries and settlements within parishes are shown. This is not a repeat of the first map. There were a number of changes to urban and rural district structure in the 1930s.

• A map of the ancient divisions named "hundreds" is to be found in A Vision of Britain through Time. It shows the detached sections of Warwickshire as they were in 1832. These detached sections have now been moved into the counties that surrounded them.
• As of October 2016 Warwickshire Parish Registers, 1535-1984 are available to search online on FamilySearch
• As of September 2018 TheGenealogist has added over 1.5 million individuals to its Warwickshire Parish Record Collection and so increases the coverage of this Midland county for family researchers to find their ancestors baptisms, marriages and burials. These records are released in association with Warwickshire County Record Office and have the benefit of high quality images to complement the transcripts, making them a valuable resource for those with ancestors from this area. These are available to Genealogist Diamond Subscription holders.
• The website British History Online provides seven volumes of the Victoria County History Series on Warwickshire. The first (Vol 2) covers the religious houses of the county; Volumes 3 through 6 provide articles the settlements in each of the hundreds in turn, and Volumes 7 and 8 deal with Birmingham and Coventry respectively. References to individual parishes will be furnished as time permits.