Wootton Wawen is a village and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon district of Warwickshire, England. The village is on the A3400 in mid-western Warwickshire, about from Birmingham, about south of Henley-in-Arden and about north of Stratford-upon-Avon. The soil is a strong clay and some arable crops are grown, but the land is mainly in pasture. The common fields were inclosed in 1776, but some inclosures had already been made about 1623. The scenery is wooded and undulating, rising from about , in the south to , in the north-west at College Farm, above Forde Hall. Near here is Mockley Wood, which, with May's Wood in the centre of the parish and Austy Wood near Edstone, is one of the larger blocks of woodland. The older part of the village straddling the A3400 is designated as a Conservation Area because of its open, rural character and many historic buildings. History The toponym "Wootton Wawen" means "farm near a wood, belonging to Wagen". Wagen or Waga is an Old Norse name. The oldest surviving record of Wootton is from when Æthelbald, King of the Mercians, gave to the Earl Aethilric 20 hides of land for a minster between the years 723 and 737. The first wooden church was built at Wootton as a direct result of this charter of land, (about ) on which to build a monastery or minster of Saint Mary. The first church may have been burnt and pillaged by Viking invaders, but between about 970 and 1040, Wagen, an Anglo-Danish landowner, established the present church. This land was in the district of the Stoppingas near the river Aeluuinnae, now called the Alne. Domesday Book (1086) records, "in Pathlow Hundred in Wotton (Wawen) 7 hides. Land for 9 ploughs. 23 villagers with a priest and 22 smallholders who have 6 ploughs. 2 mills at 11s and 8 sticks of eels; woodland 2 leagues long and one league wide. Value £4. Waga held it freely." Waga was one of the witnesses to Earl Leofric's foundation of the monastery at Coventry in the first year of the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042–43). His lands extended beyond those at Wootton Wawen, but, after the Norman conquest of England, Wootton was bestowed by William the Conqueror on Robert de Stafford, descended from the de Tonei family and who had fought stoutly with Duke William against King Harold. He made Stafford Castle his