Stoke, Warwickshire

Description
Stoke, a parish in Warwickshire, forming an eastern suburb of Coventry, within that parliamentary borough, with a post and money order office, of the name of Stoke Green, under Coventry; telegraph office, Coventry. Acreage, 940; population, 1739. The parish comprises two manors. Stoke and Briggin. The corporation of Coventry are lords of the former, and the Drapers Company of the latter. There are several superior residences with extensive grounds, and also many fine villas. Stoke contains sixty-four parish gardens, a common of 66 acres, and a heath used for pasturage and as a cricket ground. Ribbon weaving and clay-pipe making are carried on in the parish, but very many of the residents are engaged in the cycle and watch factories of Coventry. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Worcester; net value, £170 with residence, erected in 1893 at a cost of £2648. Patron, the Lord Chancellor. The church was founded in 1100 by Hugh, Earl of Chester, nephew of William the Conqueror. The present stone edifice was erected in the 13th century. It has been twice enlarged. There are Congregational and Primitive Methodist chapels. William Hollis, who was Lord Mayor of London at the time of the marriage of Anne of Cleves with Henry VIII., was born here about 1471. The Rev. Joseph Harwar, D.D., who was president of Magdalen College, Oxford, for sixteen years, and who died in 1772, was also a native of this parish. The S wall of the chancel of the church contains a marble mural monument to his memory.