RATLEY, a parish in the Burton-Dassett division
of the hundred of KINGTON, county of WARWICK, 4
miles (S. E.) from Kington, containing, with Upton, 402
inhabitants. The living is a discharged vicarage, in
the archdeaconry of Coventry, and diocese of Lichfield
and Coventry, rated in the king's books at £6. 12.,
endowed with £400 royal bounty, and in the patronage
of the Crown. The church is dedicated to St. Peter.
There is a place of worship for Wesleyan Methodists.
About sixty poor children are educated at the vicaragehouse,
which is occupied by a schoolmaster rent-free, who
receives £15 a year from the revenue of the poor's
land. On the brow of Edge Hill, within this parish, is
a large triangular fortification, called Nadbury Camp,
supposed to be of Roman construction. This hill commands
a delightful prospect of a fertile country in a
high state of cultivation, including the Vale of Red
Horse, which skirts its base: it is further celebrated, in
the annals of history, as the scene -of a sanguinary battle,
between the royalists and the parliamentary forces,
September 2nd, 1642, in which, though several hundreds
were slain on both sides, and among them many of
the nobility, both armies kept the field: numerous
fragments of skeletons have been found in the vicinity.