Stays near Atherstone

Atherstone is a market town and civil parish in the far north of Warwickshire, on the A5 beside the River Anker, which here forms the border with Leicestershire. It lies between Tamworth and Nuneaton and is the administrative centre of North Warwickshire, with 9,212 residents in 2021 and more than 11,000 including neighbouring Mancetter.

Watling Street, most of which became the A5, ran through what is now the town and the defended Roman settlement of Manduessedum stood at Mancetter nearby. Archaeologists such as Graham Webster have suggested Boudica's final defeat by the Romans, around AD 60, happened near here, although there is no firm proof.

Domesday records the place as Aderestone, held by Countess Godiva; the name probably comes from Aedelred's tun, a farmstead or town.

After the Conquest the manor passed to Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, who gave it to the monks of Bec Abbey in Normandy. In 1246 they won a charter from Henry III for a weekly market, which made Atherstone a market town. On 21 August 1485 Henry Tudor and up to 11,000 troops stopped here the day before the Battle of Bosworth, Tudor reputedly at the Three Tuns Inn in Long Street.

In Tudor times the town was a busy centre for weaving and cloth making. Its most famous tradition is the Shrove Tuesday Ball Game, played in the streets every year since 1199, more than 800 years.

Sullivan Heights is about 14 miles by road from Atherstone, Stoke Lodge and Stoke House about 15 miles and Humber Hub about 15 miles. For teams working along the A5 corridor, Sullivan Heights is the nearest base.