Sir Thomas de Astley, St Johns church Rugby.

The images below are displayed by kind permission of Pieta Greaves.

The effigy of a recumbent knight is thought to be Sir Thomas de Astley d.1265. It was severely cut about when the box pews were installed in the 1770s, and previous to that it had been badly defaced, possibly in the Civil War, when parliamentary troops may have been billeted in the church before the Battle of Naseby in 1642. They did not care for ‘graven images’ and sometimes used them as sharpening stones for their swords as well as breaking off pieces.