Hartshill is a large village 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 ...

North Warwickshire North Warwickshire is a local government district with borough status in Warwickshire, England. The borough includes the two towns of Atherstone (where the council is based) and Coleshill, and the large villages of Hartshill, Kingsbury, Ma ...

, England, contiguous with the much larger town of Nuneaton, the town centre of which is 2.5 miles (4 km) to the south-east. The parish borders the district of Nuneaton and Bedworth at the south, the North Warwickshire district parishes of Ansley at the south-west, Mancetter at the north-west, and Caldecote at the east, and the parish of Witherley in

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire to the north, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire to the south-east, Warw ...

to the north-east from which it is separated by the A5 road. The market town of Atherstone is to the north-west. At the 2021 census, the civil parish of Hartshill, which also includes the hamlet of Oldbury had a population of 3,655. The village stands on a hill overlooking the

plains to the north. The county boundary is defined by the A5 road, the former Roman Watling Street. The area has been settled since at least the

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

, just west of Hartshill are the remains of an Iron Age

hill fort A hillfort is a type of fortification, fortified refuge or defended settlement located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typical of the late Bronze Age Europe, European Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe, Iron Age. So ...

. The village was mentioned in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

as ''Hardreshull'', derived from the

old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

term meaning Heardred's Hill. Near the centre of the village are the remains of Hartshill Castle, a medieval castle. The village grew due to its

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...

ing industry, which quarried red syenite and

manganese Manganese is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese was first isolated in the 1770s. It is a transition m ...

from the local hillside. At one time there were several industrial tramways serving the local quarries and connecting them to the nearby Trent Valley railway line and

Coventry Canal The Coventry Canal is a navigable narrow canal in the Midlands of England. It starts in Coventry and ends to the north at Fradley Junction, just north of Lichfield, where it joins the Trent and Mersey Canal. It also has connections with the ...

. The Talyllyn Railway locomotive Midlander was purchased in 1957 from Jee's quarries at Hartshill. The most famous person associated with Hartshill was the Elizabethan poet Michael Drayton, who was born at Chapel Cottage in Hartshill Green in 1563. The cottage in which he was born was pulled down in 1941 due to a road widening scheme. There was a memorial to him in the form of the village bus shelter, which was erected in 1972, and was made from local stone and shaped like a

scroll A scroll (from the Old French ''escroe'' or ''escroue''), also known as a roll, is a roll of papyrus, parchment, or paper containing writing. Structure A scroll is usually partitioned into pages, which are sometimes separate sheets of papyru ...

. This was removed around 2006 due to vandalism and replaced by a plaque. Michael Drayton

Junior School A junior school is a type of school which provides primary education to children, often in the age range from 8 and 13, following attendance at an infant school, which covers the age range 5–7. Since both infant and junior schools provide pri ...

in Hartshill also bears his name. Other schools in the village include Hartshill Academy

secondary school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...

. The village church of Holy Trinity was built as a

commissioners' church A Commissioners' church, also known as a Waterloo church and Million Act church, is an Anglicanism, Anglican church in England or Wales built with money voted by Parliament of the United Kingdom, Parliament as a result of the (58 Geo. 3. ...

between 1843 and 1848 by T. L. Walker. It is made from local stone, and is noted for its large doorway which has six orders of columns and arches. The church is grade II listed. The parish has five pubs: The Stag & Pheasant, The Malt Shovel, Royal Oak, the Hartshill Club, and The Anchor which is on the

. Immediately west of the village is the Hartshill Hayes Country Park, which covers of woodland. File:Churchof Holy Trinity Hartshill nr Nuneaton Warwickshire.jpg, The entrance to Holy Trinity Church, Hartshill File:Remains of west curtain wall, Hartshill Castle, Castle Road, Hartshill.jpg, Remains of Hartshill Castle File:Hartshill Quarry (disused) - geograph.org.uk - 4910016.jpg, Disused quarry at Hartshill File:Hartshill Hayes Country Park - geograph.org.uk - 4211640.jpg, Hartshill Hayes Country Park

References

Bibliography

External links

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Hartshill Parish CouncilHartshill archives
- Our Warwickshire
Photos of Hartshill and surrounding area on geograph
{{authority control Villages in Warwickshire Civil parishes in Warwickshire Borough of North Warwickshire