The Bird in Hand is a 15th Century thatched pub and village hall (former Parochial School, which was erected in 1850) are both well frequented.

Most of the village properties have the benefit of all public utilities including gas, water, sewerage, telephone and electricity.

[3] In the Saxon era Austrey formed part of a great block of seventy or eighty Midlands vills belonging to Wulfric Spot, the Mercian nobleman who founded Burton Abbey.

After the Norman conquest the abbot was forced to share suzerainty with Nigel d'Aubigny, one of the Conqueror's trusted retinue, who was given lands in the parish as part of the spoils of the English defeat.

The monks of Burton-upon-Trent took advantage of rising wool prices in the medieval period to sublet their estates for sheep walks.

The Kendalls, hereditary lords of the manor, declared support for Parliament at the outbreak of the English Civil War and became involved with conventicles and dissent in the latter half of the 17th century.

The parish provided free quartering for a considerable force of parliamentarians commanded by Colonel Drummond and Sir Thomas Fairfax in 1646.

A quote from George Barwell of Shuttington in 1790 :- "in the parish of Austrey where he was born it has been the custom ever since he can remember (sixty years) to throw the rich waters which are collected in rainy seasons on the common fields lying on the side of the hill above the village, over the meadows which are below it, by means of floodgates and floating trenches."

The medieval pattern of settlement was scythe-shaped with tenements lining the main street running roughly parallel to the ridgeway from Orton to No Man's Heath.

The earliest record of the customary tenants on Sir William Paget's demesne in Tudor times is a partial list of the Austrey copyholders with the number of virgates held by each from a surviving manor court roll.