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In 1059, possession of Deerhurst was
granted to the abbey of St Denis in Paris, which
according to the Domesday book held 10 hides
in Preston. In 1467 the land was granted to
Tewkesbury Abbey. The parish’s connection
with monasteries apparently led to its name: a
corruption of ‘Priest-town’. The smaller manor
of Alscot (originally named Alverscote) was
once owned by one of Richard III’s principal
councillors, Sir William Catesby.
After the Dissolution of the Monasteries,
the manor of Preston on
Stour changed hands many
times. In 1747 it was bought
by James West, a Member
of Parliament and, following
in the footsteps of Wren,
Pepys, Newton and Sloane, a
President of the Royal Society.
The present house at Alscot
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medieval foundations, but by 1705 it had fallen
into disrepair. It was rebuilt entirely for James
West Esq. in two stages, 1750-2 and 1763-5,
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now known as Alscot Park, is a remarkable
example of early ‘rococo gothic’ and survives
largely unaltered to this day.
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Mary the Virgin was in 1272. A vicarage was
mentioned in 1615 but by then it had been
divided into two dwellings. It was perhaps the
cottage known today as the Priest’s House,
probably the oldest house in the village.
The church tower was built in the late 15th
century. In 1753 James West began to rebuild
the church, employing the services of Edward
Woodward of Chipping Campden. The result
was described as ‘remarkable as one of the
earliest churches of the Gothic revival’ by
Howard Colvin, in ‘A Biographical Dictionary
of British Architects’, published in 1954. The
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glass acquired by James West including some,
in the north and south windows of the chancel,
allegedly taken from Evesham Abbey.
Many of the properties in Preston are
hundreds of years old, but the houses in the
main street were built as a ‘model village’
between 1852 and 1856 using bricks made
in the Estate’s own brick-yard. Also provided
at about this time was a school, built in 1848,
which remained in use until 1975. There are
virtually no recent buildings, there being but
three properties (plus two conversions) which
have been constructed since the Second World
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of the late ‘seventies.
The Stratford & Moreton Railway, a horse-
tramway, opened in September 1826 (just a
year after the more famous Stockton-Darlington
line) and passed through the parish along the
main road. It is said to have transported 15,000
tons of coal a year, as well as passengers, up
until 1859. However it was not an economic
success despite a branch to Shipston opening
in 1836. Surpassed by the railway connection
between Moreton and Honeybourne (and on
to Stratford), gradually it became derelict and
in 1918 the rails were removed for scrap to
help the war effort. Its course is still clearly
visible, running beside the A3400 Oxford-
Birmingham road.
At the northern part of the parish, across
the main road, are the remains of buildings
associated with RAF Atherstone (renamed RAF
Stratford in 1942) which operated as a training
base for Wellington bombers during the Second
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to house homeless people, which explains the
temporary surge in the population of the parish
in the 1951 census.
In 1942 the village (which was transferred
from Gloucestershire to Warwickshire in 1931)
began to raise funds for a hall. By 1952 a total
of £708 had been collected; two ex-army
The History of the Parish
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804 AD when Ethelric, son of Ethelmund, elderman of the former
Saxon kingdom of Hwicce, bequeathed land to the monastery at
Deerhurst, which included land at ‘Sture’.
...the Priest’s
Cottage,
probably the
oldest house
in the village.