Honeybourne 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 below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

about east of Evesham in

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. Much of the parish is farmland.

RAF Honeybourne Royal Air Force Honeybourne or RAF Honeybourne was a Royal Air Force station located south of Honeybourne, Worcestershire, England and east of Evesham, Worcestershire, England The station was operational from 1940 or 1941 to 1946 or 15 Nove ...

just south of the village was operational from 1940 until 1947.

History

Honeybourne was two villages: ''Church Honeybourne'' was in Worcestershire while ''Cow Honeybourne'' was in

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

. Their names are derived from

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 ...

''hunig'', "honey", and ''burna'', "stream", the whole meaning "(places on) the stream by which honey is found"; the first word of ''Cow Honeybourne'' comes from Old English ''calu'', "bare, lacking vegetation". Boundary changes in 1931 moved Cow Honeybourne into Worcestershire and the two parishes were united in 1958. Honeybourne has several historic timber framed and thatched buildings. The Thatched Tavern in Cow Honeybourne has a

cruck A cruck or crook frame is a curved timber, one of a pair, which support the roof of a building, historically used in England and Wales. This type of timber framing consists of long, generally naturally curved, timber members that lean inwards and ...

truss.Pevsner, 1968, page 125

Parish churches

In Church Honeybourne the Church of England parish church of Saint Ecgwin was consecrated in 1295.Pevsner, 1968, page 119 Its antiquity is reflected in a local rhyme ''"when Evesham was bush and thorn there was a church at Honeybourne"''. Its

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

appear to be original late-13th-century structures. There was a south

aisle An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, certain types of buildings, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, par ...

, but it was demolished and its windows re-set in the south wall of the nave. The bell tower has a

Decorated Gothic English Gothic is an architectural style that flourished from the late 12th until the mid-17th century. The style was most prominently used in the construction of cathedrals and churches. Gothic architecture's defining features are pointed ar ...

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires a ...

with three tiers of

lucarne In general architecture a lucarne is a term used to describe a dormer window. The original term french: lucarne refers to a dormer window, usually set into the middle of a roof although it can also apply to a façade lucarne, where the gable of t ...

s. The south porch is a late mediaeval Perpendicular Gothic addition. It is a Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. In Cow Honeybourne the former parish church, known as the "Old Church" has a 15th-century Perpendicular Gothic west tower and formerly had an ornate Elizabethan pulpit. The church fell out of use for worship from the 16th to the 19th centuries and was partitioned off into four or five

tenement A tenement is a type of building shared by multiple dwellings, typically with flats or apartments on each floor and with shared entrance stairway access. They are common on the British Isles, particularly in Scotland. In the medieval Old Town, i ...

s, while pig sties and sheds were built against the outside walls. Apart from the tower, the church was rebuilt in 1861–63 to designs by the Worcester Diocesan Architect W. J. Hopkins. The church has since been made redundant, deconsecrated and converted to two private houses. It is a Grade II listed building. Honeybourne is in the

Diocese of Gloucester The Diocese of Gloucester is a Church of England diocese based in Gloucester, covering the non-metropolitan county of Gloucestershire. The cathedral is Gloucester Cathedral and the bishop is the Bishop of Gloucester. It is part of the Province ...

. Diocesan boundaries and county boundaries do not align in this part of the country.

Amenities

Honeybourne has two

public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and wa ...

s: the Gate Inn and the 13th-century Thatched Tavern. Other amenities include the Ranch caravan park, Indulgence skincare & beauty salon, hairdressers, 2 convenience stores (Co-Op and One Stop), a fish and chip shop, Post Office, Chinese takeaway, Indian takeaway, garage with petrol station, and Honeybourne Pottery. Honeybourne Harriers is one of the most popular football clubs in the area, catering for children from 4 to 18.

Education

Honeybourne Primary Academy teaches children between the ages of four and 11. Honeybees Nursery takes children between the ages of two and four.

Railways

Honeybourne station-Geograph-3549213-by-Rob-Newman

Great Western Railway (train operating company) serves

Honeybourne railway station Honeybourne railway station serves the village of Honeybourne in Worcestershire, England. Opened in 1853, it is on the Cotswold Line and was formerly a busy junction with five platform faces, also serving trains on the Great Western Railway's ...

on the

Cotswold Line The Cotswold Line is an railway line between and in England. History Early years The line between Oxford and Worcester was built under an 1845 Act of Parliament and opened in 1851 as part of the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway. ...

with direct train services to , and . The

Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway The Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway (OW&WR) was a railway company in England. It built a line from Wolvercot JunctionThe nearby settlement is spelt ''Wolvercote'' and a later station on the LNWR Bicester line follows that spelling. ...

was built through the parish in the 1840s and opened Honeybourne station. The 19th-century railway company Great Western Railway took over the OW&W in 1862 and enlarged Honeybourne station in the 1900s when it built the railway between and

Cheltenham Spa Cheltenham (), also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a spa town and borough on the edge of the Cotswolds in the county of Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort, following the discovery of mineral s ...

. British Railways closed the

Honeybourne Line The Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway (GWR, GWSR or Gloucs-Warks Steam Railway) is a volunteer-run heritage railway which runs along the Gloucestershire/Worcestershire border of the Cotswolds, England. The GWSR has restored and reo ...

between Stratford and Cheltenham, reduced the OW&W line to single track and in 1969 closed Honeybourne station. However, with increased use of the Cotswold Line, the station was re-opened in 1981 with a single platform; work completed in 2011 saw this part of the line restored to double track and

Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...

enlarged Honeybourne to two platforms with a rather large, wheelchair-accessible bridge. A report prepared for Stratford-on-Avon District Council in 2012 stated that there was a good business case for restoring the Stratford-Cotswolds link line. In July 2015 a drunken squirrel caused hundreds of pounds' worth of damage to the Honeybourne Railway Club, when it emptied an entire barrel of beer onto the floor and knocked glasses and bottles from the shelves.

Citations

General and cited sources

External links

* {{Alt text missing Villages in Worcestershire Wychavon