Families of Warwickshire
Stratford, Warwick, Rugby, Shakespeare country, the upper Avon, and the gentry seats of the green middle.
Tap a region of the map to see who held it.
Families seated in Warwickshire
- WrightThe maker, every guild town shaped one.
- WoodBy the wood.
- HillOn the hill, and the Penny Post and the National Trust.
- WardThe watchman.
- TurnerThe lathe.
- ShakespeareStratford tradesmen before troubadours, the world's best-known syllables on a modest guildman's signboard.
- CoxThe cock, youth and pride.
- DavisSon of David, one spelling among England's commonest.
- LeeThe meadow, and a clearing-name stamped on dozens of villages.
- BrooksBy the brook, every wet valley had one.
- ShawThe copse-edge, Lancashire loves it.
- PerryPear-orchard or Peter's kin.
- FordThe crossing, stamped on Shakespearian country.
- FoxThe fox, nickname that stuck.
- MatthewsMatthew's son, March and Welsh edge.
- LaneThe lane, hedge-bottom dweller.
- HayesThe enclosure, hedged common.
- WestonThe western farm, toponym epidemic.
- TiceThe German, a Norman byname for an incomer.
Historic ties to Warwickshire
Families with historic but not core ground here.
Champions made here
Famous bearers whose lives or work root in Warwickshire.
- William Webb EllisThe Salford soldier's son and Rugby School foundation scholar who, in the foundation story of the modern game, picked up the ball and ran with it in 1823, becoming the namesake of running-with-the-ball football and the figure whose name is on the Rugby World Cup trophy.
- William ShakespeareThe Stratford glover's son who wrote thirty-nine plays and a hundred and fifty-four sonnets for the Lord Chamberlain's company at the Globe and fixed the English language at its working maximum.
Stories told here
Legends set in Warwickshire, from any family that carries them.