Cleeve Prior is a village in the Vale of Evesham

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see H ...

, England. It is situated five miles north-east of Evesham. There are many picturesque houses made from the local lias stone, including the Kings Arms public house and the 150-year-old school. The church is dedicated to St. Andrew, and has 6 bells which are rung for the parish service each Sunday.

History

The name ''Cleeve'', attested 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 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

of 1086 as ''Clyve'', comes from the dative singular form of the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

word ''clif'' ('cliff, bank, steep hill'), referring in this case to the rising ground above the River Avon on which the village is situated. The estate was the property of the Priors of Worcester from early times (recorded in their

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

records as ''Clyve Prioris'') accounting for the ''Prior'' element of the name, distinguishing it from nearby

Bishop's Cleeve Bishop's Cleeve is a large village and civil parish in the Borough of Tewkesbury in the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham. The village lies at the foot of Cleeve Hill, the highest point in the Cotswolds. Bishop's Cleeve ...

References

External links

* http://www.cleeveprior.org.uk/ Villages in Worcestershire {{Worcestershire-geo-stub