Coleshill began life in the
Iron Age, before the
Roman conquest of 43AD at the
Grimstock Hill Romano-British settlement, north of the River Cole. Evidence of
hut circles were found by archaeologists at the end of the 1970s. These excavations showed that throughout the Roman period there was a Romano-Celtic temple on Grimstock Hill. It had developed over the earlier Iron Age huts and had gone through at least three phases of development. The area was at the junction of two powerful
Celtic Tribes – the
Coritanii to the east from
Leicester, and to the west the
Cornovii from
Viroconium Cornoviorum. In the post Roman or Arthurian period (The
Dark Ages), the nucleus of Coleshill moved about a kilometre to the south, to the top of the hill. Here the present church is set and the
medieval town developed around it. By 1066 the town was a Royal
Manor held by King
Edward the Confessor and is recorded in the
Domesday Book of 1086 as land held by
William the Conqueror and the site of the court for the ancient
hundred of Coleshill. In 1284/5 John de Clinton, elder, was granted
Coleshill Manor by King
Henry II, and claimed by prescription within the lordship of Coleshill,
Assize of bread and ale, gallows, pillory, tumbrell and court leet, infangthef and utfangthef, a
market,
fair, and free warren. He died in 1316. His heir was his 12-year-old grandson, John, who subsequently married a daughter of Sir Roger Hilary, and died in 1353 or 1354 leaving one daughter Joan. She had as her first husband Sir
John of Montfort, illegitimate son of Sir
Peter de Montfort of
Beaudesert. Coleshill Manor then passed to this branch of Sir
Simon de Montford who moated the
manor houses at Coleshill and
Kingshurst. King
Henry VII granted Coleshill Manor and its lands to
Simon Digby in 1496 following the execution and forfeiture of Sir Simon de Montford for supporting the rebellion of
Perkin Warbeck. The (Wingfield-Digby) family descendants still hold the titles. Coleshill village was granted a
market charter by
King John in 1207, alongside
Liverpool,
Leek and
Great Yarmouth. During the era of
stagecoach and the
turnpike trusts, Coleshill became important as a major
staging post on the coaching roads from
London to
Chester, Liverpool and
Holyhead. At one point there were over twenty inns in the town. The Coleshill to
Lichfield Turnpike dates from 1743. ==Notable buildings==