For today’s Memory Monday get your passports – and time machines - ready! We are going over the current Westwood Heath boundary to old Fletchamstead. The hamlet of ancient times was in 2 parts: Over Fletchamstead and Nether Fletchamstead.
The unusual name is thought to be derived from the Old English “flicce” – a flitch of bacon – and “stede”, meaning the produce of a farm clearly renowned for its bacon.
Like Westwood and the neighbouring hamlets, Over and Nether Fletchamstead were heavily wooded. In the early 12th Century, Henry I granted land at Over Fletchamstead (Torrington Avenue area) to a hermit named Gerard, this being a place of great tranquillity, suitable for a solitary life. Gerard built a chapel and let the rest to settlers. Later, this chapel and much surrounding land came into the hands of the Knights Templars, who also have connections to Westwood Heath as they acquired lands here in 1293. Following the suppression of the Order of the Temple, the Abbot of Stoneleigh seized the chapel lands, later granting them to the Knights Hospitallers. The estate then became part of the Preceptory of Temple Balsall.
After the Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536-1539), the Templars’ land at Fletchamstead passed initially to Katherine Parr and then through various hands over successive generations, until in 1564 it was purchased by Sir Thomas and Dame Alice Leigh. Their son “built a fair house there and made a park”. This was Fletchamstead Hall, re-developed over the years and demolished in the 1950s. Archaeological evidence of the hall was discovered during the construction of Finham II School on Torrington Avenue.
Nether Fletchamstead was located around the Queen Margaret’s Road area. It was possibly part of an ancient manor – very likely centred around the present Moat House Lane – maybe even incorporating the Moat House itself. (The Moat House, incidentally, still exists. This was the birthplace of Sir Henry Parkes, Premier of the Colony of New South Wales.) By the 17th Century there was also a hall there, though smaller than the one at Over Fletchamstead.
The History Group hope to discover more about these fascinating “lost” houses at Fletchamstead and the people who lived there.
Sources:
Nathaniel Alcock, People at Home. (Phillimore, 1993).
Coventry City Archive notes held at Tile Hill Library
David McGrory The Illustrated History of Coventry’s Suburbs to the end of the 20th Century (Breedon Books, 2018).
Images:
Knights Templars playing chess (Wikimedia Commons).
Moat House, Moat House Lane, Coventry (Wikimedia Commons).
A view of the front garden and porch of Fletchamstead Hall, date unknown. (Photo reproduced with the kind permission of Albert Smith).
Fletchamstead Hall, date unknown. (Photo reproduced with the kind permission of Albert Smith).
Fletchamstead map copyright Cassini Publishing Ltd. and used with permission.
