The manors of Great and Little Wolford stayed in the Compton family until 1819, however, at about 1600 they were bought by Robert Catesby, the leader of the group of English Catholics who planned the failed 1605 Gunpowder Plot.
By 1841 the township of Great Wolford, contained 311 inhabitants in 58 houses, and 583 in the whole parish, in an area of 2,671 acres (1,081 ha) with soil, "on the whole good", of clay, sand, gravel, and bog.
Directory listed trades and occupations in 1850 included the parish rector, a schoolmaster, the licensee of the Fox and Hounds public house, a corn miller, a carpenter, and eight farmers.
[6][7] The Samuel Lewis directory of 1850 mentions a mound of earth opened up in 1844, on the outskirts of an extensive wood near the "Oxford and Worcester road".
The living was still a discharged vicarage, now with 36 acres (15 ha) of glebe, with residence, still in the gift of the Warden and Fellows of Merton College who were the appropriators.
Land area was 1,344 acres (544 ha), growing wheat, oats, barley, beans and roots, and in which lived, in 1891, 202 people in the village, and 380 in the whole parish.
Trades and occupations listed in 1896 included eight farmers, one of whom was also a haulier and two of whom were unmarried women of the same family, two carpenters, a blacksmith, and the licensee of the Fox and Hounds public house.
Trades and occupations listed were eight farmers, again two of whom were unmarried women of the same family, one carpenter, a blacksmith, and the licensee of the Fox and Hounds public house.
[10] In 2019 a Village design statement (VDS) was drawn up for Great Wolford parish with aid from community involvement and supported by Stratford-on-Avon District Council and the National Lottery.
The Statement describes the physical aspects of Wolford, and provides guidance on maintenance of parish character and any future development.
[14] Great Wolford is represented in the UK Parliament House of Commons as part of the Stratford-on-Avon constituency, its 2019 sitting MP being Nadhim Zahawi of the Conservative Party.
Great Wolford, a civil parish at the south of Warwickshire, is entirely rural, of farms, fields, woods, dispersed businesses and residential properties, the only nucleated settlements being the village of Great Wolford with no amenities except a church and a bed & breakfast establishment, and the hamlet and farm of Nethercote.
It borders the county of Gloucestershire with its parish of Todenham completely along the north-west side and defined by a tributary stream of Nethercote Brook, and Moreton-in-Marsh at the south-west corner.
The Warwickshire parishes of Little Wolford, the boundary defined by the course of Nethercote Brook, a tributary of the River Stour, is at the east and Barton-on-the-Heath at the south-east.
To the west of the AONB, at the south-west of the parish is the commercial Wolford Woods, a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), with facilities for glamping.
A further Villager Community Bus service includes connection to Moreton-in-Marsh, Bourton-on-the-Hill, Stow-on-the-Wold, Chipping Norton, and Little Compton.
The buttressed chancel with polygonal pinacles, is listed as "short", and contains an east window in "15th-century style" by Heinersdorf of Berlin, and a vestry on its south side with internal and external access.
At the west of the tower is the church main doorway portal, arched, and with hood mould with "carved head" label stops.
The nave interior includes an 1876 pipe organ by Charles Martin of Oxford at the corner of the north wall and chancel arch, a wooden pulpit and reading desk, and an octagonal stone font, and late 17th or early 18th-century marble tablet memorials to the Ingram's family.
[3][24][19][25][26] In the churchyard to the east of the chancel is a 1698 headstone (listed 1987), limestone, with a panel with "carved drapery surround" and dated inscription.
The front aspect is of three window bays, one on the ground floor a canted bay—at an oblique angle to the wall—of 19th-century 'gothick' style with a battlemented parapet.
In late 2018 the pub was up for sale for a guide price of £550,000 with an application for conversion to complete residential use, this after a 2016 closure following a locally controversial renovation and unsuccessful relaunch.
The earthworks of a Second World War bomb store, part of Moreton-in-Marsh airfield, are at the south-east of the parish at the edge of Wolford Woods (51°59′36″N 1°39′52″W / 51.993451°N 1.664415°W / 51.993451; -1.664415).