Barwell, England, is a village, known as the Stream of the Boar. It was on the lands of the Leofric, Earl of Mercia, a rich and powerful magnate who had fought alongside Canute in his wars against Wessex. In old English, wella is the word for stream and bar the name for boar, and so this clearing in the woods was known in the Saxon tongue as Barwelle. In 1043 Earl Leofric and his wife, Godiva, established a Benedictine Abbey at Coventry and gave the Abbot and his twenty-four attendant monks, lands for their upkeep. Barwelle, along with nineteen other villages passed into the domains of the Abbot of Coventry.

Following the Norman Conquest Barwelle was still held by the Abbey of Coventry. By 1086 there were 14 villagers with a priest, and 3 smallholders with 2 ploughs; a plough being a plot of land that can be cultivated by one team of oxen. There was a meadow 1 furlong by 1 furlong in size and woodland 1 league by 3 furlongs. The value of which was 30 shillings.