There was once a railway station in the village built by the Evesham & Redditch Railways Company in September 1866, which was part of the Gloucester Loop line. At the time of its closure in January 1950 it belonged to British Rail. Neither the line, the station nor the associated railway bridge are in existence anymore, although the Heart of England Way runs along part of the old line.

In a nod to its proximity to the border of Worcestershire the Exhall & Wixford cricket club is affiliated with both the Warwickshire and Worcestershire County Cricket Boards. The village hall is not large, with a capacity of 70, but is available for rent by members of the public.

Originally ‘Witlakesford’, then ‘Wicklesford’, by 1570 the village took its present name. St Milburga’s church has a magnificent brass of Thomas de Crewe dating from 1411, and a 17th century priest’s stable in the graveyard. Moor Hall dates from the 15th century.

One of the best-known features of the little church of St Milburga in the scattered hamlet of Wixford near Alcester, is the enormous yew tree outside the south porch. In 1669 this tree became the focus of a prolonged conflict between the ‘puritan’ rector, Timothy Kirke, and his parishioners, many of whom were Catholics. For the previous hundred years, and for many years afterwards, Catholics were persecuted; they were forbidden to practise their own faith and were fined or excommunicated for not attending Church of England services.

Legacy of the English civil war

Timothy Kirke, the rector of Wixford and Exhall, was born about 1605 in Catthorpe on the Leicestershire/Warwickshire borders where he was well-connected with Parliamentary ‘puritans’ before, during and after the Civil Wars. He probably arrived in Exhall and Wixford in the late 1650s, and once the church courts were revived after the Restoration of Charles II he started prosecuting his mainly Catholic parishioners for being irregularly married, probably in private Catholic services, and for not coming to church. When they did attend, he verbally abused them and accused them of indulging in ‘popish’ behaviour.

The battle over the yew tree

In 1669 Kirke allegedly tried to fell the churchyard yew tree when parishioners began to cut greenery for what he saw as ungodly, ‘festive’ uses. They complained to the Bishop and physically attacked Kirke in the churchyard, while he threatened to take them to the church courts. This was the beginning of four more years of acrimonious dispute in which Kirke was accused of drunkenness, neglecting his pastoral duties, failing to observe Church of England services properly, and sexually assaulting his maidservants. Kirke, on the other hand, accused his parishioners of openly attending Catholic mass, leaving Wixford church almost empty during his own church services. Even the Wixford parish register reflects this conflict in its mutilated pages and insertions by Wixford Catholic families.

The horse house and mass dials

Although St Milburga’s is locked the yew tree and an unusual ‘horse house’, where the rector from Exhall stabled his horse when delivering church services, as well as some ancient ‘mass dials’ on the church’s exterior walls, are worth a visit