Mangotsfield

Mangotsfield
Mangotsfield  Mangotsfield shown within Gloucestershire
Population	12,439 (2011 Census)[1]
OS grid reference	ST641780
Civil parish	Mangotsfield Rural
Unitary authority	South Gloucestershire
Ceremonial county	Gloucestershire
Region	South West
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Bristol
Postcode district	BS
Dialling code	0117
Police	Avon and Somerset
Fire	Avon
Ambulance	South Western
EU Parliament	South West England
UK Parliament	Kingswood
List of places UK England Gloucestershire

Coordinates: 51°29′N 2°29′W / 51.48°N 2.49°W / 51.48; -2.49

Mangotsfield is a village in South Gloucestershire, England, situated north of the Bristol suburb of Kingswood, bounded to the north by the M4 motorway and to the east by the Emersons Green housing estate.

The village was mentioned in the Domesday Book in 1086 as Manegodesfelle. St James's Church was originally 13th century but was altered in 1812 by James Foster of Bristol and again in 1851 by Pope, Bindon and Clarke. Rodway Hill House is 16th century.

In the centre of the village there used to be a small village green, but it has been replaced by a large pavement, car parking and some local shops. Over the last decade the development of the Emersons Green housing estate has given rise to a large amount of traffic in the village.

Mangotsfield railway station on the former Midland Railway line was closed in 1966. It was the junction on the main line between Bristol and Gloucester for the branch line that ran to Bath Green Park and on to the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway to Bournemouth. The playwright and actor Arnold Ridley, famous for portraying the part of Private Godfrey in the BBC comedy Dad's Army, reputedly got the idea for his famous play The Ghost Train whilst waiting at the deserted station to catch a train in the early 1920s.

History

The village was mentioned in the Domesday Book in 1086 as Manegodesfelle,^[2] and as Manegodesfeld in 1377.^[3]

St James's Church was originally 13th century but was altered in 1812 by James Foster of Bristol and again in 1851 by Pope, Bindon and Clarke. Rodway Hill House is 16th century.

In the 1870s the Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales by John Marius Wilson said about Mangotsfield:

MANGOTSFIELD, a village and a parish in the district of Keynsham and county of Gloucester. The village stands adjacent to the Bristol and Birmingham railway, 6 miles N E of Bristol; and has a station on the railway, and a post office under Bristol. The parish contains also Staplehill and Downend. Acres, 2,591. Real property, £9,975; of which £30 are in quarries, £500 in mines, and £65 in iron-works. Pop. in 1851,3,967; in 1861,4,222. Houses, 922. The property is much subdivided.

There are numerous good residences. Pennant stone is worked in the N; and the coal tract of Kingswood adjoins the S. There was anciently a nunnery; and remains of it existed in the time of Leland. The living is a vicarage, united with the chapelry of Downend, in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol. Value, £251. Patron, the Rev. A. Peache. The church was mainly rebuilt in 1850: is in the pointed style; and consists of nave, N aisle, chantry, and chancel, with tower and spire. A chapel of ease, with 1,020 sittings, is at Downend. There are chapels for Independents, Baptists, and Wesleyans, two national schools, an infant school, and an Independent day school. A police station is at Staplehill.

Mangotsfield was an ancient parish. It was reduced in 1894 by the creation of a Kingswood parish, with the rest forming a parish in Warmley Rural District. In 1927 Mangotsfield urban district was set up in part of the parish, the remainder becoming Mangotsfield Rural parish in Warmley Rural District. In 1972 Mangotsfield UD and Warmley RD were merged with the Kingswood UD to form Kingswood Borough, which was merged with Northavon in 1996 to form South Gloucestershire unitary district. Today Mangotsfield itself is unparished, and Mangotsfield Rural remains a civil parish. Mangotsfield Rural has been heavily developed, and the principal development in the parish is known as Emersons Green. Mangotsfield village lost its first manor house in 1846 so that the churchyard might be enlarged, but its second medieval manor house - Rodway Hill House built in 1350 by William Blount - still stands on the edge of Rodway Common, its present façade dating from the 16th century. The only other house of distinction there is Mangotsfield House, once The Vicarage. Mangotsfield was predominately a mining village, as there were small coal-pits scattered in the north from the village towards Blackhorse and Emerson’s Green, and also some in Staple Hill and Soundwell. A big pit nearby, Parkfield Colliery in the parish of Pucklechurch, provided employment for many Mangotsfield men who walked across the fields to work every day. Most of the villagers were poor folk, mainly employed as miners, agricultural labourers or quarrymen, before the farms disappeared, the coal-pits closed and the quarries were worked out, but not before they had provided enough attractive blue and red pennant sandstone for almost all the building in the parish before the 20th century. Former workmen’s cottages, still standing, have been “improved” by their better-off latter-day occupants.

Sport and leisure

Rodway Hill, Mangotsfield.

Mangotsfield is the home of Mangotsfield United F.C. and Cleve R.F.C. Rodway Hill is a favourite spot for dog walkers and the starting point of many pigeon races.^[4]

Education and schools

There is one secondary school in Mangotsfield: Mangotsfield School (A Specialist College in Engineering and Science).

It was formed after an amalgamation between The Rodway School which is located at the current Mangotsfield School site opposite Rodway Common, and The Chase School for Boys which was located in Cossham Street. The Cossham Street and Rodway sites provided the lower school and upper school sites for Mangotsfield School respectively.

The Cossham Street site was demolished in 1996 to make way for the Emersons Green housing estate. The whole school was brought onto an expanded Rodway site. In 1997, whilst excavating the old school field, archaeologists made an important discovery when they unearthed a sarcophagus containing the remains of two people; one of them is thought to be a high-ranking Roman official. The sarcophagus is displayed in Bristol City Museum.

Notable people

Francis Greenway, a transported convict who became a prominent architect in Sydney, New South Wales, and whose image appeared on the first Australian decimal-currency $10 note in 1966, was born in Mangotsfield in 1777.

Local hero and ex Bristol Rovers Queens Park Rangers and Aston Villa striker Gary Penrice grew up in Mangotsfield.

Location grid

Neighbouring urban areas, villages, and hamlets

	Winterbourne	Kendleshire	Henfield
	Downend		Emersons Green
	Mangotsfield
	Staple Hill	Kingswood	Warmley

References