Kingsgrove

1 There are places called Grafon in ten English Counties including Warwickshire. The first syllable in this compound is now thought to be the Oold English graf, meaning Grove. Silva was absent from Grafton’s manors in 1086, byt Grafton had a grove called Kingesgraue in 1247, presumably on the site of the later fields called Grove. Kingesgraue was called a grove, showing that it was woodland rather than just a place-name. The reference was in a transaction involving half an acre of land adjoining the grove. One of Grafton’s open fields was called Grove Field on a map of 1740 and in the enclosure award of 1814. The latter also reveals the site of the grove itself. Divided into “old enclosures” called The Grove (in Temple Grafton) and Sideless Grove and Meadow Grove (in Arden’s Grafton), it was on the western edge of the parish, immediately north of the village of Arden’s Grafton and adjoining Grove Hill in Exhall to the west. It seems, therefore, that the hill took its name from the grove in Grafton rather than from a grove in Exhall itself.