PARISH REGISTERS: Christenings: 1670-1985 Marriages: 1676-1981 Births: 1671-1953 Banns 1755-1942

BISHOP'S TRANSCRIPTS: 1676-1864 (gaps)

IGI: Christenings: 1670-1878, Marriages: 1683-1719, 1755-1836

CHURCH: St.Mary the Virgin

Astley is four miles west of Nuneaton and is part of the Arbury Hall Estate. The estate was possessed by the Newdigate family in 1654. The church of St. Mary the Virgin has choir stalls that date from the early fifteenth century and a Saxon dial probably taken from an earlier church. George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) based one of the Dodson sisters in The Mill on the Floss on an aunt, Mrs Ann Garner, who lived here. The castle was the family seat of Lady Jane Gray. The village was called Estein in the Domesday Book of 1086 and gives the details that the land was owned by the Count of Meulan.

The Parish Registers can be found at Nuneaton Library or at Warwick County Record Office.

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