Offchurch

Offchurch is a village and civil parish on the River Leam, east of Leamington Spa in Warwickshire. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 250.

==History== The origin of the name "Offa's Church" suggests a connection to Offa, who was King of Mercia from 757 to 796, and the proximity to the manor house of Offchurch Bury lead William Dugdale to infer there was a fortification of Offa's here deriving from the Saxon word burh or fortified place. William Camden went further and quoted the legend that Offa's son, Fremund, 'a man of great renown', had been murdered and "buried at his Father's Palace, now called Offchurch", the church being built to commemorate his death. The village is not mentioned by name in Leofric's foundation charter of Coventry Priory in 1043 or in the Domesday Book of 1086, but the wording of the confirmation of the charter by Henry III in 1267 implies that the place was in possession of this priory from its foundation. At the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII, the estate was purchased by the Knightley family who possessed it until the First World War.