Astley, Warwickshire

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Astley is a village and parish within the North Warwickshire district of Warwickshire, England. In the 2001 census it had a population of 219.

Astley is Knebly in George Eliot's Mr Gilfil's Love Story.

[edit] St Mary the Virgin

The Parish Church was rebuilt by Sir Thomas Astley in 1343. A Saxon carving of a sundial from an earlier church was preserved in the tower. The present church dates from another rebuild in 1617 by the Chamberlayne family. It is mainly the chancel of the 1343 building and the original east window incorporated into the tower. Preserved in the church are effigies of the Grey family, 18 Choirstalls painted with images of the Prophets and Apostles and, on the ceiling, 21 Heraldic Shields of Midlands families.

[edit] Astley Castle

Astley Castle, a Grade 2* listed building, is the last of three castles built on the same site and using the same moat. The castle was held by the Newdigate family in the 19th century, latterly being the home of Lieut-Gen. Edward Newdigate Newdegate. It was later a hotel, but is now a ruin following the fire in 1978.

Astley Castle was a Parliamentary stronghold during the Civil War, one of a network of small, troublesome garrisons that infested this part of the midlands, drawing upon surrounding villages for their support. According to one of the garrison muster lists submitted to the committee of accounts at Warwick, Captain Hunt and Lieutenant Goodere Hunt commanded about thirty five soldiers here in July 1644. Ann Hughes, links Astley to the "rebel towns" described by royalist propaganda broadsheets as governed by low-born tinkers, cobblers and pedlars, pointing out that Hunt was "an illiterate shoemaker" before the war, prosecuted in 1647 for requisitioning a gentleman's horse. The small but active Astley garrison compares with ‘Tinker’ Fox’s celebrated band of 7 officers and 42 troopers at Edgbaston Hall, George Kendall’s 6 officers and 21 soldiers at Maxstoke Castle and Waldyve Willington’s garrison of around 130 soldiers at Tamworth Castle (including the ‘the town company’) in accounts from July 1645 (SP 28/123/part 2).

The size of the Warwickshire garrisons varied, troops being often shifted at short notice and sent out when they were needed for scouting parties, to collect levies and to carry out raids and sieges on royalist garrisons. The muster at Astley on 9th July, 1645 which lists 79 officers and 462 “horse troops” under the command of Major Hawkswell, was an unusually large gathering, with the town’s population swollen by the sudden arrival of troops from surrounding garrisons, including Edgbaston and Tamworth. Most of these horse troops were probably quartered in the village, with some of the officers and Goodere Hunt’s foot soldiers occupying the castle. (SP 28/122/part 2)

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