Uley is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( , ; abbreviated Glos.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Herefordshire to the north-west, Worcestershire to the north, Warwickshire to the north-east, Oxfordshire ...

, England. The parish includes the

hamlets A hamlet is a human settlement that is smaller than a town or village. This is often simply an informal description of a smaller settlement or possibly a subdivision or satellite entity to a larger settlement. Sometimes a hamlet is defined f ...

of Elcombe and Shadwell and Bencombe, all to the south of the village of Uley, and the hamlet of Crawley to the north. The village is situated in a wooded valley in the Cotswold

escarpment An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations. Due to the similarity, the term '' scarp'' may mistakenly be incorrectly used inte ...

, on the B4066 road between Dursley and

Stroud Stroud is a market town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It is the main town in Stroud District. The town's population was 13,500 in 2021. Sited below the western escarpment of the Cotswold Hills, at the meeting point of the ...

. In 2011 the population of the civil parish was 1,151, but was much greater during the early years of the industrial revolution, when the village was renowned for producing blue cloth. The placename (recorded as ''Euuelege'' in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

) probably signifies 'clearing in a yew wood'.

History

The Romans built a temple at West Hill, near Uley, on the site of an earlier prehistoric shrine. Following the laying of a water main pipe there in 1976, many discoveries were made including numerous Roman writing tablets or lead

curse tablet A curse tablet (; ) is a small tablet with a curse written on it from the Greco-Roman world. Its name originated from the Greek and Latin words for "pierce" and "bind". The tablets were used to ask the gods, place spirits, or the deceased to perfo ...

s from the temple area. These writing tablets appear often to relate to theft, and here the mention of animals and farm implements is a regular theme. There is an ongoing, online project to catalogue all those found at West Hill. Other remains from this temple, including a fine stone head of Mercury, can now be seen in the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

. There were significant Roman villas nearby at Frocester, Kingscote, and Woodchester, and there is a little-known

Roman villa A Roman villa was typically a farmhouse or country house in the territory of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, sometimes reaching extravagant proportions. Nevertheless, the term "Roman villa" generally covers buildings with the common ...

beneath Cam Peak on the road into Dursley. St Giles's Church near the village green was designed by the 19th-century architect Samuel Sanders Teulon. His building replaced an earlier church dating back to Norman times, which had in its turn replaced a

Saxon The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...

church. The nearby church of the Holy Cross at Owlpen also has Saxon origins: the church there was rebuilt in 1828 by Samuel Manning and enlarged and decorated in 1876 by James Piers St Aubyn. There were also non-conformist chapels at South St and Whitecourt until the early 1970s. The village was once famous for its large number of pubs (around 14), lately reduced to a single hostelry (The Old Crown). Until the 1970s there was also a butcher's shop and a petrol station, these were subsequently replaced by antique shops and occasional restaurants, and now only a small village shop remains. The area surrounding Whitecourt appears to have some considerable historical significance, with long associations to the Osborne family and a possible

Roman road Roman roads ( ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Em ...

transecting from Kingscote to the East via Bencombe, crossing the Ewelme brook close to the previous mill buildings opposite Stouts hill and then transiting what is now Lampern View before exiting west towards Cam/Coaley; elements clearly visible just uphill of Bencombe (as the road veers 90 degrees to the north) and to the West opposite the entrance to Angeston Grainge/Nursery (where it enters the wood as a paved and walled causeway. The increased mechanisation of agriculture in the area (arable on top of the

, sheep on it and cattle in the valleys) led to a gradual decline during the inter-war periods and this led to the construction of three local authority housing estates - South Street, Lampern View and Raglan Way. However, increased mobility following the construction of the M4 and the Severn Bridge in the mid-1960s, together with an influx of skilled/managerial/professional workers following the establishment of such facilities as the Berkeley

power station A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the electricity generation, generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electr ...

, led to a steady gentrification of the village, witnessed by the construction of substantial detached homes, for example at Court Gardens, South Street and Green Close. During the 1920s, Miss Edna Cunningham, brought a baby gorilla to Uley who she named John Daniel. He had been bought by her brother from a London department store. The gorilla was raised as a normal child by Miss Cunningham and he played with the village children. However, when John Daniel grew too large, Cunningham sold him to an American who told her he was to be homed in a special reserve in Florida. Instead he was sold to the Barnum & Bailey Circus to be exhibited at Madison Square Gardens in New York. John Daniel became extremely depressed. When Miss Cunningham heard he was gravely ill, she travelled to America but he died of pneumonia before she arrived. His body was stuffed, which remains on display at the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconn ...

in New York.

Economy

Uley Brewery was established in the 1980s, in a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

that had been part of the 1833 Price Brewery which closed at the end of the 19th century. Its range of ales includes ''Old Spot Prize Ale'', a 5% abv old ale, and ''Uley Bitter'', a 4% abv cask bitter.

Amenities and surrounding locality

The following amenities and attractions are available in and around the village: * North of the village is a

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

burial mound known as Hetty Pegler's Tump or Uley Long Barrow. * The Prema Arts Centre, founded in the 1970s, is located in a former Baptist Chapel in the village and offers educational courses in the arts and crafts, musical evenings, workshops, cultural events and evening classes in many subjects. * Uley CofE VC primary school has around 100 pupils. Uley Primary School can be found in Woodstock Terrace. The school was rated 'good' by Ofsted and 'outstanding' by SIAS, both in 2012. * A Reading Room (Library) burned down in the mid-1960s and has not been replaced. * An ancient

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

hill fort A hillfort is a type of fortification, fortified refuge or defended settlement located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typical of the late Bronze Age Europe, European Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe, Iron Age. So ...

called Uley Bury lies just above the village. The Cotswold Way, a popular trail path, runs close by. * Downham Hill lies just to the west. It is also known as 'Smallpox Hill' because of the

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by Variola virus (often called Smallpox virus), which belongs to the genus '' Orthopoxvirus''. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (W ...

isolation facility that stood on the top of the hill many years ago. It is believed to be among the oldest isolation hospitals in England. Masonry from the buildings remains visible at the site. Near the hilltop are remnants of a tower-like dwelling constructed in 1346 during the reign of

Edward III Edward III (13 November 1312 – 21 June 1377), also known as Edward of Windsor before his accession, was King of England from January 1327 until his death in 1377. He is noted for his military success and for restoring royal authority after t ...

. Area to the north of the hill was used for rabbit breeding during the middle ages. * To the east is Owlpen Manor, a Tudor

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were usually held the lord's manorial courts, communal mea ...

connected with the

Arts and Crafts movement The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and America. Initiat ...

, mainly built from the mid-fifteenth to early seventeenth centuries, but dating back to Saxon times. It was repaired by Norman Jewson in 1925–26, after one hundred years of neglect. Today it is a home of the Mander family. * Stouts Hill, a neo-Gothic country house just outside the village, was the birthplace of the Gloucestershire historian Samuel Rudder and of the distinguished Persian scholar

Edward Granville Browne Edward Granville Browne FBA (7 February 1862 – 5 January 1926) was a British Iranologist. He published numerous articles and books, mainly in the areas of history and literature. Life Browne was born in Stouts Hill, Uley, Gloucestershire, ...

. Built for the Gyde family, from the 1770s it was a seat of the Lloyd-Baker family, who in the 20th century let the house as a preparatory school. It included amongst its alumni

Mark Phillips Mark Anthony Peter Phillips (born 22 September 1948) is an English Olympic gold medal-winning horseman for Great Britain and the first husband of Anne, Princess Royal, with whom he has two children. He remains a leading figure in British equ ...

Stephen Fry Sir Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director, narrator and writer. He came to prominence as a member of the comic act Fry and Laurie alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring in ''A Bit of ...

and Rik Mayall, but closed down in 1979.

People

* Brigadier Mike Dauncey lived in the village until his death in August 2017. * Richard Clyburn invented an early adjustable spanner.

References

Bibliography

* Ann Woodward and Peter Leach, ''The Uley Shrines: Excavation of a ritual complex on West Hill, Uley 1977-79'' (1993),

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...

, * Alan Saville, ''Uley Bury and Norbury Hillforts'' (1983), Western Archaeological Trust, * Ed. Alan Bebbington, ''A History of Uley, Gloucestershire'' (2003), The Uley Society, * Eilert Ekwall, ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names'' 4th edition. Oxford University Press, 1960,

External links

Genealogy information on UleyStroud Voices mid 20th century oral history from Uley residents
{{authority control Villages in Gloucestershire Stroud District Civil parishes in Gloucestershire Roman sites in Gloucestershire