Wootton Wawen

[3] The older part of the village straddling the A3400 is designated as a Conservation Area because of its open, rural character and many historic buildings.

[4] The oldest surviving record of Wootton is from when Æthelbald, King of the Mercians, gave to the Earl Aethilric 20 hides of land for a minster between the years 723 and 737.

The first wooden church was built at Wootton as a direct result of this charter of land, (about 2,000 acres (810 hectares)) on which to build a monastery or minster of Saint Mary.

Wootton Wawen is a ward within Stratford on Avon District Council and represented by Councillor Ian Shenton of the Conservative Party who is also the County Councillor for the Arden Division of the County Council which includes Wolverton, Langley, Preston Bagot, Henley, Wootton Wawen, Ullenhall, Tanworth in Arden and Earlswood Parishes.

[9] Nationally it is part of Stratford-on-Avon constituency, whose Member of Parliament has been Manuela Perteghella of the Liberal Democrats since the 2024 general election.

The tower is the earliest part of the church, preserved in the middle despite restricting views of the chancel from the nave,[11] is the current site of the altar.

[10] The church has a small chained library of 17th-century theological works and some notable monumental brasses particularly the altar tomb of John Harewell and his wife Anna (1505).

The 16th-century oak frame with pits for three bells still exists: the posts have moulded corbelling at the tops and are strengthened by curved struts.

a man defamed & of tainted life he hath two charges beside Wooton videlicet, Henley & Ownall Ullenhall he supplieth by his hirelinges: whereof one vpon a rumor of change of religion in mounsiers daies did shave his beard [indicative of a reversion to Catholicism].

[16] They established a small alien priory here: a prior and one monk constituted its community and the church was re-dedicated to St Peter ad Vincula.

In 1398 Richard II gave the priory to the Carthusians at Coventry, but the grant was reversed soon after by Henry IV and the monks re-established.

An inquisition was held at Warwick on the Tuesday after Palm Sunday, 1281, to hear the dispute between Peter de Altaribus, and brother Roger his monk.

William the vicar of Wootton, had been summoned to the priory to stop the brawl, and on arrival he met the prior coming out of the hall door whilst inside he found brother Roger sitting in a chair with his nose bleeding.

Between the mill and the church is Wootton Hall, a large stone building in the Palladian style, mainly built in 1687 but incorporating parts of an earlier, probably Elizabethan, house.

Three of the buildings north of it on the same side, and The Cottage, facing the south end of the village street, have remains of 17th-century timber framing.

In a short lane south of the church is the old Workhouse, now a dwelling-house; it is a small timber-framed building covered with rough-cast cement and has a gabled north end with a jettied upper storey.

[citation needed] The Manor Farm, at the north end of the village, is built of early-18th-century brick, but the chimneystack of diagonal shafts looks earlier.

The west front, slightly recessed between gabled cross-wings, has a doorway with a semi-domical hood carved with palm leaves and a basket of fruit and flowers.

The Monarch's Way, a long-distance footpath which approximates to the escape route taken by Charles II in 1651 after his defeat in the Battle of Worcester, passes through Wootton Wawen.

In the Second World War the Russian composer Nikolai Medtner and his wife lived in a secluded house outside Wootton Wawen, where he completed his Piano Concerto No.

St Peter's church from the south-east