[1] It ultimately escheated to the Crown[5] and in 1204 King John (1199–1216) granted it to William I de Cantilupe (died 1239), from whose family [1] the village takes its name.

[5] The family had been conspicuous for several generations, "evil councillors" of King John and his son Henry III, as Matthew Paris recorded,[6] and strong supporters of the Crown against the Barons.

The estate was then broken up among the tenants: the Gild-house, to which the manorial rights attached, was bought by Sir Charles Tertius Mander of Wolverhampton, whose trustees became the lords of the manor.

The earliest reference to paper-making at Aston Cantlow occurs in the inclosure award of 1743, from which it appears that there must have been a water mill near the junction of the river Alne and Silesbourne Brook.

Thomas Fruin of Aston Cantlow, paper-maker, is recorded in 1768 in the Abstracts of Title for Stratford-upon-Avon, About 1799 the mill near the church was converted into a paper-mill by Henry Wrighton, trade directories show that this family carried on the business until about 1845–50.

After a short period during the 1890s, during which the mill was used again for its original purpose, it became for a few years a factory for making ball bearings for bicycles before being finally abandoned in the 1920s.

Nationally it is part of Stratford on Avon parliamentary constituency, whose MP following the 2010 election is Nadhim Zahawi of the Conservative Party.

The church of St John the Baptist is principally in the Early English style consisting of a chancel, nave, north aisle, south porch, and an embattled and pinnacled western tower.

[10] The survey of the clergy by the puritans in 1586 described the then vicar, Thomas Clarke, "parson no precher nor learned, yet honest of life & zealous in religion he hath 3 or 4 charges & cures beside that of Kynerton, he supplieth by his deputies, his hirelinges that serue by his non-residency are all dumbe & idle & some of them gamsters : vah of all Ixxx a yeare".

[11] The most celebrated incumbent of Aston Cantlow was Thomas de Cantelupe, mentioned above, who held the living before his elevation to the See of Hereford.