COMBE FIELDS
Acreage: 3,720 (4,310 since 1932). (fn. 1)
Population: 1911, 156; 1921, 168; 1931, 192.
This district, originally the parish of Smite and later
extraparochial, is now a civil parish containing no
village, about 5 miles east of Coventry. The northwestern boundary is formed by the Withybrook, and
the eastern by a small stream running south into the
Smite Brook, which itself, running westward, forms
the southern boundary as far as Priest's Bridge and
then continues across the parish. A mile farther west,
near the remains of the monastic fish-ponds, it is
dammed to form the Pool (90 acres) in the grounds
of Combe Abbey. The original courses of the brook
and of a small stream coming from the south to join it,
though now covered by the Pool, are shown on the
6-inch O.S. map (1889) as the boundaries of the southwest corner of the parish.
The ground rises gently from 240 ft. in the southwest to 350 ft. in the north and east; it is for the most
part open, with one extensive block of woodland at
High Wood, just east of the Abbey Park. A road from
Coventry to Brinklow skirts the southern edge of the
Park, and another from Brinklow to Anstey runs northwestwards, parallel to the Oxford Canal (fn. 2) and the
Trent Valley section of the old L.N.W. Railway (later
L.M.S.R.). There are brick-works and disused clayand gravel-pits. Part of the parish is now occupied by
the Anstey aerodrome.
A 'tumulus' marked on the O.S. maps, north of the
Abbey, is of doubtful antiquity. Due east of it is Peter
Hall, a farmhouse largely of 18th-century red brick
but incorporating the remains of the church of Smite,
consisting of chancel, nave, and south aisle, built of red
sandstone ashlar, which survives to first-floor level and
in places up to the eaves. At the east end there are
buttresses to the angles, in two weathered stages, and
below the gable is the hood-mould of a destroyed
square-headed window. On the north side there is a
late-13th-century pointed, roll-moulded doorway.
After the Dissolution, when the estates of Combe Abbey
were granted to Mary, Duchess of Richmond, she
leased a messuage adjoining Peterchurche and a pond
called Peterpole to William Raynsford. (fn. 3)
Combe Abbey occupies the site and includes a few
remains of the Cistercian abbey. Towards the end of
the 16th century John (afterwards Lord) Harington
built a house incorporating three sides of the 15thcentury cloister–the south side had been destroyed
with the church. The next alteration seems to have
been in 1667, when Isaac Gibson built a wing projecting westwards from the south end of the west wing. (fn. 4)
Gibson was presumably the tenant of Lord Craven;
he was knighted in 1674 and was described then and
as late as January 1680 (fn. 5) as of Combe Abbey but must
have moved shortly afterwards to Worcester, where he
was living in 1682 and in 1700. (fn. 6) In 1680 Lord Craven
put in hand the enlargement and partial rebuilding of
the house, his agent being his nephew Sir William
Craven. (fn. 7) Part of the old building was said to be 'very
rotten and leaning'. The existing west wing was built
from the designs of Capt. William Winde, (fn. 8) the mason in
charge being Jonathan Willcox, the carpenter William
Coules, and the very fine plasterwork of the interior
by Edward Gouge. In 1861–4 the east wing was
pulled down and replaced by a block designed by W. E.
Nesfield in a sort of French gothic style; this has
recently been pulled down, with the exception of parts
of the ground-floor arcades.
The only fragment of the original 12th-century
structure surviving is the entrance to the chapter-house.
This, which was in the east walk of the cloister, was
spared by Nesfield and in the destruction of his work.
It is built of red sandstone ashlar and has a roundheaded doorway of four orders, the outer decorated
with shallow cheverons. The orders rise from three
attached and one detached shafts, all with floriated
capitals, moulded bases, and moulded imposts which
are carried on to serve flanking round-headed open
windows. Each of these is of two orders, the outer
decorated with cheverons, and contains, below a solid
masonry tympanum, two round-headed arches supported on short shafts, five on each side and four in the
centre, with carved capitals and moulded bases.
The two remaining sides of the cloister court keep
most of their late-16th-century features. The north
side is of three stories; on the ground floor are three
bays of the cloister with four-light windows; above
these project on brackets four-light transomed windows
with gable heads, and on the top floor low four-light
windows. The west side is similar, but of only two
stories and of seven bays. The south end of this range
ends in three ogee-shaped gables, containing a scallopshell ornament and the three-light mullioned windows
of the attics. On the first floor in the centre is an original
seven-light mullioned window, with three transoms.
The two-light transomed windows farther west in this
front belong to the Gibson building of 1667. This
forms a block projecting at the south end of the west
front and terminating in three equal gables, with contemporary mullioned windows.
The west, and principal, front, overlooking the
terrace and formal garden, is built of light-coloured
stone ashlar, two stories in height, with dormer windows
to the attics in the low-pitched slated roof. At the north
end a wing projects to the depth of one bay. Between
this and the projecting Gibson wing is the Palladian
front, surmounted by a central pediment, containing
the Craven coat surrounded by swags, and a modillion
cornice. There are seven windows to each story, all
with moulded architraves; the centre window on the
ground floor has a segmental pediment and the one
above it a flat moulded hood, supported on scroll
brackets. The leaden rainwater heads and pipes bear
the Craven coat and a C surmounted by a coronet. The
north front and its return have been rendered with
cement and present no features of interest.
The interior has been somewhat modernized, but
several rooms retain their original decoration. (fn. 9) The
ball-room, or great dining-room, about 50 ft. long,
has a ceiling with fine and elaborate plaster ornament;
the walls are panelled and the architraves of the doors
have pediments with the Craven monogram and in one
instance the date 1684. The dining-room is panelled
in tall bolection-moulded panels; a beam across the
ceiling, supported on twin Ionic columns, has a panelled
soffit with bead and reel decoration. The library,
which appears to have been the original kitchen, has
been dismantled, its doors, covered with dummy bookbacks, being used for cupboards elsewhere. There is
a fine contemporary staircase, some good chimneypieces, and plasterwork.
The beautiful grounds were laid out by 'Capability'
Brown, and the most attractive feature of Nesfield's
work was the moat which he constructed on the south
and east of the house and which is connected with the
lake, of 90 acres, in the grounds. There are two lodge
gates; the western, mid-18th-century, in the form of a
Roman triumphal arch, the eastern in the gothic style
of the early 19th century.
Manor
In the 11th century part of the district
afterwards known as Combe Fields was
occupied by the manor of SMITE. Comprising 6 hides, it had been held freely in the time of
Edward the Confessor by Harding; after 1066 it was
granted to Earl Aubrey, but by 1086 it was being
managed for the King by Geoffrey Wirce, or de la
Guerche. (fn. 10) In 1150 Richard de Camville founded
a monastery of the Cistercian order, colonized from
Waverley (Surrey), (fn. 11) granting to the latter 'all my land
of Smite which I hold of Roger de Mowbray by the
service of one knight'. (fn. 12) Roger confirmed the grant, (fn. 13)
as did also Robert, Earl of Leicester, (fn. 14) to whom the
overlordship had come, who released the monks from
military service; and Henry II; (fn. 15) and in 1290 the
Abbot of Combe and his successors were granted free
warren in their demesne lands. (fn. 16)
After the dissolution of the monastery its site and
buildings were granted, together with the manor of
Smite, to Mary, Duchess of Richmond and Somerset
in 1539 for life, (fn. 17) and in 1547 the reversion thereof
was assigned to John, Earl of Warwick. (fn. 18) In 1539 the
Duchess had leased, for terms of 60 and 40 years,
various parts of the abbey estates to William Raynsford,
to whom in 1545 a reversion for 21 years after the
death of the duchess was granted for a yearly rent of
£24 6s. 8d. (fn. 19) The Earl of Warwick, afterwards Duke
of Northumberland, settled his reversion to the main
portion of the estates on his son John, Lord Lisle, and
Alice his wife in 1550. After Lord Lisle's death in
1554 his widow married Sir Edward Unton, (fn. 20) and
they together granted the manors of Smite and Combe
to the king and queen in 1557. (fn. 21) In the same year
the Duchess of Richmond died, and a 40-year lease of
the monastic estates, less the portions she had leased to
(Sir) William Raynsford, who now took up his 21-year
reversion (fn. 22) , was granted for a yearly rent of £196 8s. 1d.
to Robert Keylway. (fn. 23) This portion, including the site
and buildings, was then in the hands of Sir William
Wigston as subtenant. Keylway, who was Surveyor
of the Court of Wards and Liveries, died in 1581, when
his daughter and heiress Elizabeth was 30 and married
to John Harington of Exton, Rutland. (fn. 24) He was
created Baron Harington at the coronation of James I, (fn. 25)
and between 1603 and 1608 had the guardianship of
the Princess Elizabeth, afterwards Queen of Bohemia,
at Combe Abbey. (fn. 26) He died in 1613 and his son the
following year, leaving two sisters as coheiresses, Lucy,
wife of Edward, Earl of Bedford, who took two-thirds
of the family estates, including Combe, and Frances,
wife of Sir Robert Chichester. (fn. 27) In 1616 the lordship
of the manors of Combe and Smite was granted to
George Villiers, (fn. 28) from whom the Countess of Bedford
held as tenant; with her husband and others she granted
sub-leases of the manors to Ralph Freeman and others
in 1620 (fn. 29) and to William Littleton and George Purefey
in the following year. (fn. 30) In 1622
the Earl and Countess of Bedford
and others sold their interest in
the manors of Combe and Smite,
and the lands of the former
monastery, to Elizabeth widow
of Sir William Craven, Lord
Mayor of London in 1610–11,
for £36,000. (fn. 31) In 1624 she
settled the estate on her sons
William, then aged 18, John,
and Thomas. (fn. 32) William, who
became Baron Craven of Hampstead Marshall (Berks.)
in 1627, obtained licence in 1634 to inclose 650 acres
of the demesne land to make a park, and to have free
warren therein. (fn. 33) From this time the Craven family are
styled lords of the manors of Combe and Smite. William,
then Earl of Craven, before his death in 1697 apparently relinquished control of the Combe Abbey property to his cousin, Sir William Craven, described as
'of Combe Abbey', who died in 1695. (fn. 34) The son of
this latter, another William, 2nd Baron Craven by
special remainder, (fn. 35) died in 1711 and his son was lord
in 1730. (fn. 36) The Craven family were still in possession
of Combe Abbey until 1923, when it was sold by the
11th Baron and 5th Earl (of the creation of 1801) to
John George Gray, esq., (fn. 37) the present owner.
Craven. Argent a fesse between six crosslets fitchy gules.
The church of Smite was evidently given by Roger
de Mowbray to Samson d'Aubigny, who was a clerk
of Roger de Clinton, Bishop of Chester (1129–48),
as Samson gave the church with its chapel of Brinklow
to Kenilworth Priory, his gift being confirmed by
Roger de Mowbray (fn. 38) and later by Henry II. (fn. 39) When
the abbey of Combe was founded the monks must have
acquired the church from Kenilworth and no more is
heard of it. The fabric was still standing, with a
cemetery attached to it, (fn. 40) having presumably been
used as a chapel served by the monks, until the dissolution of the abbey, after which it was allowed
to decay and was converted into the present house of
Peter Hall.