Why is there no village around the church?

The Sites and Monuments Record for Warwickshire lists the churchyard and church field (orchard) as being the site of a medieval settlement:

'The most prominent village boundary yet noted is at Little Packington, one of the few deserted nucleated settlements within the Arden forest. Here, a small rectangular enclosure including the church and space for a few croft sites is delimited by a bank rising about four or five feet above an outer ditch, beyond which is a limited area of ridge and furrow'. Coins from the 12th and 15th to 17th centuries and a openwork medieval ornament (an anthropomorphic) have been reported by metal detectorists."

However, according to Beresford (1945), Great and Little Packington are forest settlements, so that it would not be unusual to find no settlement here.

From earlier times, minor Neolithic and Bronze Age finds north eastwards of the church suggest an area of settlement, overlooking the river Blythe.

In 913 and 914 AD, Aethelflaed, sister of King Alfred and Lady of the Mercians, built fortresses at Warwick and Tamworth to consolidate the Midland territories regained from the Vikings. For centuries following, the most important road in the country ran from London to the North West by this route, which for some distance in the newly created shire of Warwickshire followed the left bank of the river Blythe. A settlement developed in the estate of Packington near the point where the road from Coventry and East Anglia forded the river and crossed this royal road before continuing on its way to Shrewsbury (and a small place called Birmingham, later of some importance). The importance of this crossing point is further attested by the discovery of a Roman camp nearby, at the Somers, Meriden. Also in the area were eastward-headed saltways from Droitwich, and the northwest-southeast green roads of the cattle drovers and shepherds, that became more important in later centuries.

Packington village stood on a gravel bluff inhabited since neolithic times, above the meadows, mills and fisheries of the meandering river, with its open fields to the north and adequate supplies of well water. Grazing for pigs and the all-important timber supplies for building, fuel and utensils came from Domesday Book's woodland of one league by one league (perhaps 580 ha, 1400 acres). This was probably mostly on the east bank of the river, in the area given to Kenilworth Abbey in the early twelfth century, later to become the parish of Great Packington.

The most likely origin of the name Packington is 'Pacca's estate'. Pacca is a presumed Saxon landowner, although such a personal name is not in fact met with in any sources. Anglo-Saxon place names ending in -ingtun can imply an estate carved out of a larger one, usually by grant (Margaret Gelling, Signposts to the Past). The name might alternatively - though with less likelihood - be rendered as 'The settlement of Pacca's people' and refer to the early age of Saxon settlement. It may be connected also with Packwood - Pacca's wood - and with Packington in Leicestershire.

As the weaving town of Coventry grew in importance during the 14th century on its way to becoming the fourth largest city of the kingdom, it created more and more road traffic. It also exerted an attraction on long-distance journeys so that most travellers would go first to Coventry before heading north. The decline of Packington's north-south traffic was therefore countered by an increase in travellers heading from Coventry though Meriden to Coleshill, crossing the Blythe at Packington ford, where a packhorse bridge was built. The present structure dates from a rebuilding in the 1680's.

Pack animals, 1816

So a hamlet grew up at Packington ford, and the settlement around Little Packington church declined, leaving the classic signs of a deserted village: a farm, a rectory, and a church - together with banks and boundary ditches which at one time probably stretched right down to the river. The other relics of the medieval period here are the remains of fishponds to the west of the church - the road crosses the dam of one; a smaller one lies below it - and the possible site of stone quarries in the rectory dell and to the north of the road, where an outcrop of Arden sandstone beneath the Mercia Mudstone was exposed by a brook.

Population of Packington

# "5 or 6 keep teams"(Dugdale 2nd ed) # "10 keep teams"

* 15 households, 90 rooms. * 50 households, 325 rooms.

 Area: 1095 acres (1841) 2568 acres (1841) 577K acres     1024 acres (1887)

1086 acres land, 9 acres water (1904 - Kelly's)

443 Hectares (1961) 1040 H (1961)              1 Hectare = 2.471 acres ?? GP 1971 90 + 19 = 109 ??

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