Shuttington
[also Alvecote priory
see bottom]
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Alvecote Priory was founded in 1159 by William Burdet, who gave all the land he owned in Shuttington & Alvecote, including the mill, to support the establishment.
There is a local tradition that Burdet founded the priory out of remorse for murdering his wife, because he suspected her of infidelity, only afterwards to find his suspicions unfounded. More likely he was ‘persuaded’ by his feudal overlord, Robert Beaumont Earl of Leicester, who himself founded a number of monasteries.
The church at Shuttington was granted to the monks at Alvecote in about 1195.
Alvecote Priory continued through the medieval period, surviving on a limited income from rents and the hard work of its peasants, the Prior being the Lord of the Manor. In 1334 Edward III gave some help towards repairing the priory cloisters and the adjoining church. The only remaining archway possibly dates from this time and may have originally been the west door of that restored church.
After Henry VIII came to the throne, his Lord Chancellor, Cardinal Wolsley, started looking for small decaying monasteries to close and transfer their endowments. In 1536 the Prior of Alvecote, William Sutton, surrendered the
priory to the King’s commissioners. From then on the Lord of the Manor would be a layman and never again in residence at Alvecote. The buildings became a private house called Aucote or Alvecote Hall.
The manor lands of Alvecote and Shuttington remained in royal hands until 1543 when they were granted to Thomas, Lord Audley. He was a lawyer who helped Henry with a number of delicate matters such as the execution of Thomas More, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, as well as the further selling off of church land. His own spectacular home at Audley End was the converted monastery of Walden Abbey.
After only 6 months Audley sold the land on to Joan Robinson, widow of a London grocer, who passed it on to her son William. He got into financial trouble and his inheritance was acquired in 1579 by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Leicester was the favourite of Queen Elizabeth I until, desperate to produce an heir, he married Lettice Knollys of Drayton Manor in secret. Possibly as a means of regaining royal favour, Leicester returned the ownership of the manor of Shuttington and Alvecote to the throne.
Lettice’s son by her first marriage, the Earl of Essex, also became a favourite of the Virgin Queen. She granted him a long lease on Shuttington Manor until 1697, when William III granted ‘the land and estate of the cell or priory of Alvecote in the County of Warwick and the land belonging to the same in the manor of Shuttington’ to Thomas, Lord Conningsby, Earl of Essex. I have always presumed that Wessex Court on Main Road was intended to be called ‘Essex Court’!
Alvecote Hall was always occupied by tenants of the royal or noble owners. The Yardleys were first, followed by the Balls and then the Robeys who took up residence in 1715 and continued until 1874. Robeys Lane is naturally named after this family and it was they who changed the name of the property from Aucote Hall Farm back to Alvecote Priory.
Three Sillito brothers took over the Priory and from 1890 until 1929 ran it as an agricultural college. They gave the priory the grand name of ‘Tamworth Agricultural and Colonial College’. The Sillitos left the Priory in 1932 and moved to Amington.
Colonel d’Arcy Chayter took over the site; he resided at Pooley Hall and owned the colliery there. Everything passed to British Coal with the nationalisation of the coal industry in the late 1940’s. When the coal industry collapsed and collieries were closed, Alvecote Priory was taken over by Warwickshire County Council and is now a picnic site.