Hockley Heath is a large village and civil parish in the Arden area mostly within the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull, West Midlands, England, incorporating the hamlet of Nuthurst, with a history dating back to the year 705 AD as a wood owned by Worcester Cathedral. The parish, known as Nuthurst cum Hockley Heath, is to the south of the West Midlands conurbation, southeast of Birmingham from Solihull town centre and north of Stratford-upon-Avon. The village forms part of the border with Warwickshire and the District of Stratford-on-Avon to the south, with some parts of the village on either side of the border. According to the 2001 census, the parish had a population of 6,771, being measured at the 2011 Census as 2,038. History Nuthurst The area known as Nuthurst derives its name from the anglo saxon Hnuthyrste, meaning Nut Wood, a woodland that covered what is now Nuthurst, along with the hamlet of Illshaw Heath, within the larger Forest of Arden. William Dugdale found no mention of a settlement before the reign of Henry III (1216–72) but it has been identified with the woodland 'aet Hnuthyrste' given with Shottery to Worcester Cathedral by Offa of Mercia c. 705. In 872 Werfryd, Bishop of Worcester, granted to Eanwulf, the Kings thane, land at Hnuthyrst for four lives, with reversion to the monastery of Stratford. After the Norman Conquest the name usually appeared as Notehurst, but gradually reverted to its present and original spelling. It was part of Hampton-in-Arden, and 1/5 knight's fee in Nuthurst was held of Niel de Mowbray c. 1230 and of Roger de Mowbray in 1242. The overlordship descended in this family, being held by Roger de Mowbray at his death in 1297, and by John Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, in 1432. The church at Nuthurst - at the time a curate chapel of Hampton in Arden - dates from at least 1216 and was dedicated to St Peter. A painting from 1820 shows the church in ruins and the only thing that remains of the church now is the graveyard and a ruined mortuary chapel dating from the 1800s. The church likely fell out of use because of the construction of the church of St Thomas in Hockley Heath, which was closer to the main road of the hamlet. After the Mowbrays the manor passed to the Montforts, Hastings and then to the Trussells. It was Sir