Tuesday 23 November 2021

Warwickshire Places (19) : Kingsbury

Kingsbury is a village in the North of Warwickshire which has Saxon origins and was mentioned in the Domesday Book. The village was in a defensible position by the river Tame, indeed the "bury" part of the name means fort. Parts of Kingsbury Hall, a fortified manor house, still remain including parts of it's defensive walls.

Kingsbury is in the Hemlingford Hundred of Warwickshire, Hemlingford being a ford over the river Tame very close to Kingbury's church. The hundred's meeting place was at Hemlingford Green.

The church dedicated to St Peter and St Paul has been dated to 1200CE though an earlier church was likely on the same site, parts of the Norman church still remain. Kingsbury remained a small village until the 19th century when coal and mineral mining and the railways helped the village expand (though the station is now gone). Since the 1960s a large oil storage depot has been situated near the village. Also near the village is Kingsbury Water Park, a large leisure facility which re-used former gravel pits.