Coleshill

The oldest artefact found in Coleshill was a Lower Palaeolithic Acheulian style handaxe. It was found on the surface of a ploughed field at Bowers Farm. A Mesolithic tranchet axe-head was also found at the same farm at a different time. A Neolithic flint axe or adze was found near a pond at Brentford Grange Farm and a Neolithic flint scraper was found in the garden of Red Lion Cottage.

 

There was possibly a Roman building in Stony Rocks field as pottery and tile has been found in ploughing. A Roman road runs through the parish. It may also be the site of a medieval chapel, although a chapel is also recorded in historical and place-name evidence at Chappel Farm.

 

Several of the houses in Coleshill were built in the early seventeenth century, which was a period of expansion for the village. Areas that had previously been woodland were cleared to make way for new farms. These four houses described below are just a few of the ones in Coleshill itself that were built at this time. Others are in the outlying settlement of Winchmore Hill. The only building that may be older is Forge House, which used to be an inn and contains some medieval timbers.

 

Stock Place is to the north of the green and used to be the manor house. It was home from 1600-1616 to Edmund Waller, grandfather of the poet buried at Beaconsfield. The old part of the house is only the cross-wing of a much larger house. It was probably built in 1550 and the large part of it demolished in 1625.

 

Henry Ball probably built Red Lion Cottage on the site of an earlier house in 1619 to prepare for his marriage in 1620. By the late seventeenth century, Thomas Glenister, a maltster, lived here. There is a malting kiln in the southern extension to the house, which would have been outside in the seventeenth century. Medieval pottery and floor tile have been found in the garden.

 

Littlelands was built on cleared woodland around 1630. It was built using some of the bricks and timbers from Stock Place when it was dismantled in 1625. The first owner was Thomas Eeles, a farmer. The house had two ground floor rooms and the upper floor was for the servants to sleep, reached by a ladder.

 

Grove Mill. Oxfordshire County Council Photographic ArchiveFriar’s Vane used to be called Lands Farm, but the name was transferred to a nearby house. It was built between 1628 and 1633 and the first occupant was Zwinglius Pratt. The family were strict Calvinist protestants. The original seventeenth century barn is now attached to the house.

 

Several of the other listed buildings are nineteenth century, such as All Saints church, the school and the Little Georgian House. There also seem to have been a few pottery kilns in the village in the nineteenth century, perhaps at Forge House and Sansons, where pottery and wasters were found in the gardens. Grove Mill, which is just outside the village, was a nineteenth century windmill but is now a house.