Barston is a

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

Metropolitan Borough of Solihull The Metropolitan Borough of Solihull is a metropolitan borough in West Midlands (county), West Midlands county, England. It is named after its largest town, Solihull, from which Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council is based. For Eurostat purpose ...

in the West Midlands of

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. It is approximately 4.5 miles (7 km) east of

Solihull Solihull ( ) is a market town and the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull, in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. Solihull is situated on the River Blythe in the Arden, Warwickshire, Forest of Arden ar ...

and is located inside a large

meander A meander is one of a series of regular sinuous curves in the Channel (geography), channel of a river or other watercourse. It is produced as a watercourse erosion, erodes the sediments of an outer, concave bank (cut bank, cut bank or river cl ...

of the River Blythe, at the western edge of the

Meriden Gap The Meriden Gap is a mostly rural area in the West Midlands, England, between Solihull and Coventry. It is a part of the wider West Midlands Green Belt, separating Coventry from the large West Midlands conurbation, which includes Birmingham an ...

, and midway between the far larger villages of

Balsall Common Balsall Common is a large village in the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull, West Midlands, England. It is situated northwest of Kenilworth, west of the centre of Coventry (but only two miles (3 km) from the western part of Coventry), east of S ...

and Hampton-in-Arden. The nearest large city is

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

, away to the west. According to the

2001 UK Census A nationwide census, known as Census 2001, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 29 April 2001. This was the 20th UK census and recorded a resident population of 58,789,194. The 2001 UK census was organised by the Office for National ...

, the parish had a population of 499, increasing to 533 at the 2011 Census. Barston is an affluent village with many historic buildings, some of which are timber-framed. The Church of St. Swithin is a

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

which dates from 1721, and is built on the site of an earlier church. The village also possesses two pubs
The Bulls Head
and The Malt Shovel, and about 50 residential properties. The Barston Memorial Institute, opposite the Bulls Head, hosts many village activities with a Friday night youth club and regular Art Classes as well as the Barston WI and U3A meetings. There is no bus service or any other form of public transport in the village, although an abandoned bus stop still exists at the end of the central road of Barston, Oak Lane, which is left over from an old-school service from the 1970s and 1980s. Next to the bus stop is an old-fashioned red phone box. The footballer Robbie Keane owned a house in Barston from 1999 to 2000, whilst playing for Coventry City F.C.

References

External links

British History Online - The Parish of Barston
*
Barston village website
Villages in the West Midlands (county) Conservation areas in England Geography of the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull {{WestMidlands-geo-stub