which was built in the middle of the 13th century. The remainder of the church was rebuilt early in the 14th century in the Decorated Gothic style. The nave has a clerestory and is flanked by north and south aisles, each of four bays. The Gothic Revival architect Ewan Christian restored the chancel with new windows in 1844–45. The original church had a leaded roof with a castellated wall; drawings of the church in the pre-Victorian format are held by Birmingham Central Library. In the Victorian era the current pitched roof replaced the original and the porch was added. The tower has a ring of five bells. Three including the tenor were cast by Hugh Watts II of Leicester in 1632. Another was cast by Thomas Rudhall of Gloucester in 1770. The treble was recast by James Barwell of Birmingham in 1911 from another 1632 bell by Hugh Watts. St. Nicholas' parish is now part of the Parish of All Souls, North Warwickshire along with the villages of Newton Regis, Seckington, Shuttington and Warton. Settlement The line of earthworks below the church in the area known as the Bishop's Field are part of a complex of water management ducts and ponds with this area used as water meadows. A quote from George Barwell of Shuttington in 1790 :- "in the parish of Austrey where he was born it has been the custom ever since he can remember (sixty years) to throw the rich waters which are collected in rainy seasons on the common fields lying on the side of the hill above the village, over the meadows which are below it, by means of floodgates and floating trenches." Also in the Bishops Field is a natural spring known as the holy well. The new settlement at the Nether End probably originated with Earl Leofric's original grant to Burton Abbey, which would account for the siting of the monks' farmstead at nearby Bishop's Farm. The medieval pattern of settlement was scythe-shaped with tenements lining the main street running roughly parallel to the ridgeway from Orton to No Man's Heath. The earliest record of the customary tenants on Sir William Paget's demesne in Tudor times is a partial list of the Austrey copyholders with the number of virgates held by each from a surviving manor court roll. All but two of the twelve tenants listed on the demesne in 1546 held a