men", to one of his thegns who later transferred this part of the vill to the abbey. After the Norman conquest the abbot was forced to share suzerainty with Nigel d'Aubigny, one of the Conqueror's trusted retinue, who was given lands in the parish as part of the spoils of the English defeat. Although he retained two and a half hides in Austrey, the abbot was no longer the principal landowner in the parish. The Domesday Book of 1086 records 42 inhabitants in the town. The monks of Burton-upon-Trent took advantage of rising wool prices in the medieval period to sublet their estates for sheep walks. Aubigny lands reverted to Burton Abbey. In 1538 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries the Abbey surrendered its lands to the Crown. In 1541 the abbey was refounded as a collegiate church and Austrey manor was restored to it. However, in 1545 the collegiate church was dissolved and in 1546 the Crown granted Austrey manor to Sir William Paget. His son Henry Paget inherited Austrey manor in 1563 and still owned it in 1587. Thereafter the manor was divided into freehold farms that were sold to the wealthier tenants. One of the Austrey manors came into the possession of the Kendalls of Smithsby through marriage with one of Henry Alstre's co-heiresses in 1433. The Kendalls were well-established in Austrey by 1550 and they continued to consolidate their position after this date. The other Austrey manor held by Sir Walter Aston was broken up and divided among his tenants in the early 17th century. By the Tudor period the village was divided into two separate parts: the original settlement cluster around the church and market cross at Over End and a later extension at Nether End. The Kendalls, hereditary lords of the manor, declared support for Parliament at the outbreak of the English Civil War and became involved with conventicles and dissent in the latter half of the 17th century. Henry Kendall was governor of the parliamentary garrison at Maxstoke from March 1644 to October 1645. The parish provided free quartering for a considerable force of parliamentarians commanded by Colonel Drummond and Sir Thomas Fairfax in 1646. It is the namesake of Austrey School, Karachi, Pakistan. Parish church Austrey had a parish church by 1155. The oldest part of the present Church of England parish church of Saint Nicholas is the Early English Gothic tower,