Wolvey – a brief history

Wolvey has been strategically placed since Roman times.  Watling Street, linking London with the south-east and north-west was built by the Roman army, and today forms the north-eastern boundary of the parish.  Nearby High Cross with its Roman settlement developed at the junction of Watling Street with the Fosse Way, the south-west to north-east arterial route which was in existence before the Romans arrived.

The well-drained and easily managed sand and gravel soils, however, have been the reason for much earlier settlement in Wolvey and district, dating to prehistoric times.  These soils contrast with the boulder clay south of the village, probably forested at that time.  Access to Wolvey then would most likely have been along the rivers Anker (from the Tame and the Trent) or the Little Soar (from the Soar and the Trent) or by a third stream which passes through Withybrook to join the Sowe and eventually the Avon .  Thus the source of three tributaries of important rivers in the region led back to Wolvey.

Evidence of Late Neolithic and Bronze Age activity, some four thousand years ago, is abundant in the area.  A number of fields have yielded evidence of flint tools, some stray finds but others more likely to represent flint-knapping;  the nature of the flint suggests it was brought to Wolvey to be worked into tools for the local community. The tools include arrowheads, knives and scrapers which suggests some hunting and preparation of animal skins took place here.  A number of mounds in the area, some built of turf, are likely to cover the burials of some of Wolvey’s bronze age inhabitants. Aerial photography suggests that there were Iron Age and Roman farmsteads in the area.  The famous defeat by the Romans of Boudicca, queen of one of the British tribes, probably occurred on Watling Street not far from Wolvey.

The first written record of Wolvey occurs in the Domesday Book of 1086.  From this we learn that Aethelric held land here before the Norman conquest. This also  records the name of Wolvey (Ulveia) and as it indicates a priest in the place, there was presumably a church.  The earliest part of the fabric of the present church is a 12^th century doorway by which date Wolvey was prosperous enough to provide a weekly market for the area.  There were other settlements within the parish; one with its own chapel, known as Little Copston, long since disappeared, while another, recorded in the Domesday Book was Bramcote (Brancote).  They were agricultural communities, arable and pasture, with supporting crafts like smiths and millers, and operated within the feudal system.   Much of the land was farmed for the benefit of Combe Abbey;  one farm at Wolvey, which included a large fish pond, had been given for the benefit of the Knights Templar in 1257 – hence the current name of Temple Farm.

Such land was removed from the religious orders following the dissolution of the monasteries in the mid-sixteenth century.  The manorial system however continued with strips of land cultivated by copyhold tenants in an open field system with shared grazing areas, controlled by two Lords of the Manor, the Marrowe and Astley families.  This system lasted for another two hundred years until changes in farming practice led to the enclosure awards in Wolvey of 1797.   From about this time a number of features associated with modern Wolvey begin to emerge. The road pattern as we know it today was laid out.  A school was established by the Vicar of Wolvey for poor children about 1784 and the Baptist Chapel was built 1789.  By this time the industrial revolution was leaving its mark on rural Wolvey both in farming and in the work of its inhabitants.  The 1841 census records more people employed in framework knitting than in farming; farm labouring brought in about nine shillings a week; knitters could earn up to 12 shillings a week. Thus the Leicestershire hosiery industry impacted on Wolvey although about mid-century some silk ribbon weaving was being undertaken, most likely linked to the Coventry industry.

By the end of the century farming and its support services provided income for the majority of its inhabitants; there was a village smithy and a wheelwright but also a number of traders in Wolvey: butchers, bakers, grocers, coal dealers and other shopkeepers.