Kites Hardwick

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Kites Hardwick (also known as Kytes Hardwick) is a hamlet between Rugby and Royal Leamington Spa in Warwickshire, close to Draycote Water and bisected by the River Leam. The first part of the name probably derives from a large number of Red Kites (a bird of prey) and to distinguish it from neighbouring villages such as Priors Hardwick.

It has an agricultural heritage with a number of farms, with some farmhouses dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries. Recently some of the farm land has been dedicated to a golf driving range.

In medieval times, from the time of Edward III onwards, Kites Hardwick was a village, but it was depopulated by the Black Death in the 15th Century and has never recovered to village status since then. There was a manor house and a chapel.

During World War Two a small munitions factory occupied some land, and there was a 'dummy' airfield. There was an incendiary bomb attack on a thatched cottage, believed in fact to be simply the jettisoning of bombs causing incidental damage. The factory was involved in light engineering postwar into the 1960s.

The de Herdwick family takes it name from the village.

Kites Hardwick is part of the ecclesiastical and civil parishes of Leamington Hastings