Easy hikes and walks around Studley

Completed in 1836, Studley Castle is a Grade II listed building set in 28 acres of countryside in Warwickshire. Francis Lyttleton Holyoake, high sheriff of Warwickshire, commissioned knowned theatre architect Samuel Beazley to design the castle in Gothic Revival style.

A young looking wood will be impressive in about 50 year

Studley Castle is a Grade II* listed building set in 28 acres of countryside in Warwickshire. The vision of Francis Lyttleton Holyoake, high sheriff of Warwickshire, it was completed in 1836. He had a £120,000 budget - an eye-watering £14.5m today - and enlisted Samuel Beazley, a renowned theatre architect, to design a castle in Gothic Revival style. For the next 70 years, Studley Castle served as an extraordinary family home. Ultimately, though, such decadent living became a price too high to pay and Francis was declared bankrupt. In 1903, Lady Warwick purchased the building and transformed it into the Studley Agricultural College for Women to provide horticultural training to daughters of the gentry. Requisitioned by the government, it became a training camp for the Women’s Land Army during the First and Second World Wars and remained a women’s-only college for the next 60 or so years. In 1969, the building gained its Grade II* listing, and after a time as offices and a conference centre, in 2006 it was converted again, this time into a country house hotel.

Part of the Henley Forest Marathon route. Good paths well marked. Off road shoes needed.

While walking down the Studley high street look out for the old Police Station...now converted into housing but you can still see the Police Station carved into the stone work above the door.

Studley began as a Saxon village around the River Arrow. There is a priest at Studley mentioned in the Doomsday Book.  This means that there was probably a wooden Saxon church on the site of the present Norman stone church, which was founded around 1105. A late Anglo-Saxon axe head was found in the churchyard in the 1950s. From the Middle Ages the village of Studley gradually migrated to its present site around the Icknield Way, now the A435.  There is no documentary evidence for why the population shifted.  Theories include the Plague or flooding from the River Arrow. In the 19th Century there was still an inn opposite the church, and a number of scattered cottages, all known as Church End.  Now only the church and the manor (on the site of the Norman castle, seat of the Corbucion family) remain.  This has given the church an exceptionally tranquil setting. The church was restored in 1888 and again in 1935, when the 12th century window in the north wall was discovered. The current Restoration began in 1990.  So far the tower and all roofs have been renewed.  The church has been completely rewired and redecorated.  During the 1997 redecoration the wall paintings were surveyed.  Considerable traces were found of medieval paintings, but were too fragile to leave exposed.  The windows remain to be restored.  The church is listed as Grade 2*.  The building is an unusual mixture of styles, with many architectural puzzles. for walkers there is an opportunity for tea/coffee/cake here while you take in the sights.