Westerleigh is a clustered 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 ...

(which includes

Henfield Henfield is a large village and civil parish in the Horsham District of West Sussex, England. It lies south of London, northwest of Brighton, and east northeast of the county town of Chichester at the road junction of the A281 and A2037. Th ...

) in

South Gloucestershire South Gloucestershire is a unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire, South West England. Towns in the area include Yate, Chipping Sodbury, Thornbury, Filton, Patchway and Bradley Stoke, the latter three forming ...

, England, it contains sources of the

Frome Frome ( ) is a town and civil parish in eastern Somerset, England. The town is built on uneven high ground at the eastern end of the Mendip Hills, and centres on the River Frome. The town, about south of Bath, is the largest in the Mendip d ...

and has an endpoint of the

Frome Valley Walkway The Frome Valley Walkway is an 18-mile (29 km) footpath which follows the River Frome from the River Avon in the centre of Bristol to the Cotswold Hills in South Gloucestershire. The path also links the Cotswold Way National Trail at ...

. It is north of the M4, south of

Yate Yate is a town and civil parish in South Gloucestershire, England. It lies just to the southwest of the Cotswold Hills and is northeast of Bristol city centre and from the centre of Bath, with regular rail services to Bristol and Gloucester. ...

and north-east of the city of Bristol. In the south it includes a steep hill of its own from the crest of the Cotswold hills which is designated an AONB.

Background

The village is first mentioned in a Saxon document of 887AD. At that time it was probably just a clearing in the woods with possibly a wooden church. Westerleigh is mentioned 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. In

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

times the village would probably have been a green with the houses and church around it, and prosperous. The northern wall and porch of St James church is from the 13th century, as is the carved stone pulpit. The church was rebuilt in the

perpendicular In elementary geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at a right angle (90 degrees or π/2 radians). The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the ''perpendicular symbol'', ⟂. It ca ...

style, with the tower (once used as the village lock up) added at a later date. The 700th anniversary was celebrated in 2004. By 1600 the village supported a shoemaker, a blacksmith, a sawyer, a flour mill, a malt house and two public houses. In 1617, John Crandall was baptised to James and Eleanor Crandall at St. James the Great church, and became one of the founders of Westerly,

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents as of 2020, but it ...

, United States. The discovery of coal in 1660 provided employment for the villagers, with further finds at

Coalpit Heath Coalpit Heath is a small village in the parish of Westerleigh, South Gloucestershire, England, south of Yate and east of Frampton Cotterell in South Gloucestershire. Background Due to the expansion of Coalpit Heath and the neighbouring vill ...

and Parkfield providing more employment. The mines closed in the last century, when the coal was exhausted. By 1876 occupations in the village included farmers, a bootmaker, shopkeepers, innkeepers, butchers, a plasterer, a blacksmith, a

wheelwright A wheelwright is a craftsman who builds or repairs wooden wheels. The word is the combination of "wheel" and the word "wright", (which comes from the Old English word "''wryhta''", meaning a worker or shaper of wood) as in shipwright and arkwr ...

, a market gardener and a carrier. At the end of the 19th century many of the old houses were demolished. At the beginning of the 20th century, the railway and mining provided most of the work. Now residents find work in nearby

, Chipping Sodbury and

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

, and in the village itself.

Governance

An electoral ward in the same name exists. This ward stretches from Dodington in the east, through 'Westerleigh'. The total population for the ward at the 2011 census was 3,755.

Amenities

The village has two public houses: the New Inn and Ye Olde Inn. As well as Wot Not second-hand shop, and two garages. The village shop has now closed.

Transport

In the late 18th century roads were built to Downend. The Great Western and

Midland Railway The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had its headquarters. It ama ...

s were constructed in the 19th century.

Westerleigh Junction Westerleigh Junction is a railway junction in Gloucestershire, England, where the Cross Country Route (XCR) from to Bristol Temple Meads meets the South Wales Main Line (SWML) from London Paddington to , near the village of Westerleigh. The j ...

was a crossing point of east-west and north-south main lines. In particular it is considered to be the present end of the line from milepost zero at

Derby Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby g ...

. Westerleigh formerly had a goods depot on the Bristol & Gloucester Railway. Demolished in the 1960s as part of the

Beeching cuts The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Development of the M ...

, the site is now the home of one of Murco's oil storage terminals.

Location grid

References

External links

Westerleigh village websiteWesterleigh Parish Council website
{{South Gloucestershire Villages in South Gloucestershire District Civil parishes in Gloucestershire