ASTLEY, a parish in the Kirby division of the
hundred of KNIGHTLOW, county of WARWICK, 4 miles
(W.S. W.) from Nuneaton, containing 293 inhabitants.
The living is a perpetual curacy, in the archdeaconry
of Coventry, and diocese of Lichfield and Coventry, endowed
with £16 per annum and £ 400 private benefaction,
and £600 royal bounty, and in the patronage of
F. Newdigate, Esq. The church, dedicated to St. Mary,
was made collegiate and rebuilt in the form of a cross,
with a lofty spire, in the reign of Edward III., by
Lord Thomas de Astley, many of whose family were interred
here; the ancient choir, now forming the body
of the church, is the only portion of the building remaining:
the revenue of the college, at its dissolution,
was £46. 8. A short distance to the north is an old
mansion, erected in the sixteenth century, on the site
of a more ancient baronial castle, some portion of the
massive walls of which still exist.