Wilmcote is a village a few kilometres to the north of Stratford-upon-Avon.
Canal side in Wilmcote
Information
County:
Warwickshire
District:
Stratford-upon-Avon
Population:
1229 (2011 census)
The village is best known for being the birthplace of Mary Arden, Shakespeare's mother and the location of her farm. Wilmcote was listed in the Domesday Book as Wilmecote and was later a hamlet of the nearby Aston Cantlow.
Wilmcote remained a small agricultural settlement until the eighteenth century when limestone quarries resulted in the then-new Stratford-upon-Avon Canal being routed through Wilmcote. The village gained a railway station in 1860. The quarries are no longer in use and nowadays the village is mostly residential though it also attracts tourists who come to see Mary Arden's Farm which is maintained as a working Tudor style farm.
An interesting find in the Wilmcote stone quarry was a fossil of a young Ichthyosaur. This is now on display in the Warwick Market Hall Museum.
In some ways Wilmcote can be considered the genesis of the regeneration of the British canal network after it's decline as a commercial traffic network into a now thriving leisure attraction. In 1957 the road bridge over the canal in Wilmcote needed to be replaced. To save money the authorities wanted to abandon the derelict canal saying it was no longer needed. However, this threat was averted and a new bridge was built. In the 1960s the canal was restored to navigability, the first of many to be revived.
Houses in Wilmcote
Mary Arden pub
Mary Arden Farm
Bridge over the canal, a very important one in the history of the canals, see above
