Alderley, Gloucestershire
Alderley (also previously known as Alderleigh[2]) is a village and civil parish in the Stroud district of Gloucestershire, England, about fourteen miles southwest of Stroud and two miles south of Wotton-under-Edge. It lies underneath Winner Hill, between two brooks, the Ozleworth and Kilcott.[3] It has an entry in the Domesday Book of 1086 where it is referred to as Alrelie[4] meaning "Woodland clearing where alders grow" (from OE alor + lēah),[5] whereas in a later 1309 document it is referred to as Alreleye, and in a 1345 document as Alrely.[6] It is on the Cotswold Way and is near to the hamlets of Hillesley and Tresham.
In the 16th and 17th century, the village contained a number of woollen mills,[7] and in Samuel Rudder's A New History of Gloucestershire published in 1779, he states that Alderley had been home to the clothing industry for hundreds of years.[8]
In A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis, Alderley is described thus:
- ALDERLEY, a parish in the upper division of GRUMBALD'S ASH, county of GLOUCESTER, 2 miles (S.S.E.) from Wotton under Edge, containing 235 inhabitants. The living is a discharged rectory, in the archdeaconry and diocese of Gloucester, rated in the king's books at £ 11. 4. 7., and in the patronage of Mr. and Mrs. Hale. The village is situated on a hill between two streams, which unite and fall into the LOWER AVON. Cornua ammonis and other fossils are found here. Sir Matthew Hale, Lord Chief Justice in the reign of Charles II., born here November 1st, 1609, lies interred in the church.
Architecture
The village contains several interesting buildings:
- The church of St Kenelm was rebuilt in Gothick style in 1802, but the tower is c1450.
- Immediately to the southwest of St. Kenelm's church is Alderley House, a 19th-century neo-Elizabethan manor house designed by Lewis Vulliamy for Robert Blagden Hale and built in 1859-1863. The house is located on the site of an earlier Jacobean country house built by the famous jurist Sir Matthew Hale in 1656-1662. For the 70 years following the outbreak of World War II, the property served as the site for Rose Hill School, an independent day and boarding preparatory school, until its merger in 2009 with Querns Westonbirt school. The merger formed the Rose Hill Westonbirt School, which relocated to nearby Tetbury, and the vacant property was sold for use once again as a private residence.
- Alderley Grange was rebuilt, probably by a Bristol architect, about 1760; it occupies the site of an earlier house where Sir Matthew Hale (jurist) was born. It was the home of James Lees-Milne, the architectural writer and memoirist, and his wife Alvilde Chaplin, who created a much-admired garden.
References
- ^ Census, 2001
- ^ http://ww3.gloucestershire.gov.uk/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqSearch=(RefNo=='D2957/354/240')
- ^ Edmund Heward (1972), Matthew Hale, p. 13, http://books.google.com/books?id=bkdnAAAAMAAJ&q=%22robert+hale%22+alderley&dq=%22robert+hale%22+alderley&hl=en&ei=nWZ_Tau1K8uBhQe7nf2eBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&sqi=2&ved=0CEoQ6AEwBg, retrieved 2011-03-14
- ^ "Alderley". Domesday Book. The National Archives. 1086. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/details-result.asp?Edoc_Id=7577483&queryType=1&resultcount=4. Retrieved 2011-03-15.
- ^ A. D. Mills (2003), "Alderley", A Dictionary of British Place-Names (Oxford University Press), http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t40.e211, retrieved 2011-03-16
- ^ http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=2189-bcm_1-1_2&cid=-1#-1
- ^ Edmund Heward (1972), Matthew Hale, p. 13, http://books.google.com/books?id=bkdnAAAAMAAJ&q=%22robert+hale%22+alderley&dq=%22robert+hale%22+alderley&hl=en&ei=nWZ_Tau1K8uBhQe7nf2eBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&sqi=2&ved=0CEoQ6AEwBg, retrieved 2011-03-14
- ^ http://www.gsia.org.uk/reprints/1972/gi197242.pdf
External links
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