Aston Ingham is a village in south-eastern

Herefordshire Herefordshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England, bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh ...

, England, near

Newent Newent (; originally called "Noent") is a market town and civil parish in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, England. The town is north-west of Gloucester. Its population was 5,073 at the 2001 census, rising to 5,207 in 2011, The population ...

and about east of

Ross-on-Wye Ross-on-Wye is a market town and civil parish in Herefordshire, England, near the border with Wales. It had a population estimated at 10,978 in 2021. It lies in the south-east of the county, on the River Wye and on the northern edge of the Fore ...

. The population of the village at the 2011 census was 398. There is a church, dedicated to

St John the Baptist John the Baptist ( – ) was a Jewish preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the early first century AD. He is also known as Saint John the Forerunner in Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, John the Immerser in some Baptist ...

, which has been 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 ...

since 17 March 1987.

Etymology

The village was called Estune 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 ...

(1086), for the

Old English Old English ( or , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

ēast tūn, meaning "eastern farmstead or estate". In 1242, it was Estun Ingan for the Ingan family, who had a manor there at the time.

History

At the time of the 11th-century Domesday Book, Aston was located in Bromsash Hundred in Herefordshire, with 23 households. There was one lord's plough team, eight men's plough teams, and one mill. In 1066, the lord was

Edward the Confessor Edward the Confessor ( 1003 – 5 January 1066) was King of England from 1042 until his death in 1066. He was the last reigning monarch of the House of Wessex. Edward was the son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy. He succeede ...

, and 20 years later the lord of the village was Godfrey, who was also lord of Cleeve and Lower Cleeve, and Wilton in Bromsash Hundred and Ashe

ngen {{about, Mapuche mythology, other uses, NGEN (disambiguation) In Mapuche mythology, Ngen or " Ngen-ko " are spirits of nature of the Mapuche beliefs. In Mapudungun, the word ''ngen'' means "owner". Legend The Ngen are those that manage, govern a ...

in Archenfield Hundred. Ansfrid of Cormeilles was the

tenant-in-chief In medieval and early modern Europe, a tenant-in-chief (or vassal-in-chief) was a person who held his lands under various forms of feudal land tenure directly from the king or territorial prince to whom he did homage, as opposed to holding them ...

. For about a hundred years, the land was attached to the barony of Cormeiles. The land was then sold to the Ingayn (or Ingan) family, who added their name to the village name. In 1868, Aston Ingham was defined as a village, parish, and township in the Greytree hundred, on the border of the

Forest of Dean The Forest of Dean is a geographical, historical and cultural region in the western part of the Counties of England, county of Gloucestershire, England. It forms a roughly triangle, triangular plateau bounded by the River Wye to the west and no ...

. It was located from

Mitcheldean Road railway station Mitcheldean Road railway station was a railway station that served the town of Mitcheldean to the south and the village of Lea in Herefordshire. Opened in 1855 with the line it was located on the Great Western Railway line linking Ross-on-Wy ...

of the

Hereford, Ross and Gloucester Railway The Hereford, Ross and Gloucester Railway was a railway which ran for linking Hereford and Gloucester, England, via Ross-on-Wye. It was opened on 1 June 1855 as a broad gauge line, it was amalgamated with the Great Western Railway in 1862. ...

and from

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city, non-metropolitan district and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West England, South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean ...

. It had an old white stone church in the

Diocese of Hereford The Diocese of Hereford is a Church of England diocese based in Hereford, covering Herefordshire, southern Shropshire and a few parishes within Worcestershire in England, and a few parishes within Powys and Monmouthshire in Wales. The cathedral i ...

. Its incumbent was Rev. Henry L. Whatley. May Hill between Aston Ingham and

Longhope Longhope is a village in west Gloucestershire, situated within the Forest of Dean, England, United Kingdom. Arthur Bullock, who was born in Longhope in 1899, described its location as follows: The parish occupies the most easterly valley in the ...

, with its distinctive clump of fir trees, was said to be a reference point for mariners in the

Bristol Channel The Bristol Channel (, literal translation: "Severn Sea") is a major inlet in the island of Great Britain, separating South Wales (from Pembrokeshire to the Vale of Glamorgan) and South West England (from Devon to North Somerset). It extends ...

. There was a National free school for boys and girls. The lord of the manor was Captain K. M. Power. In 1861 there were 2,378 acres of land in the village and a population of 568. There were also

lime kiln A lime kiln is a kiln used for the calcination of limestone (calcium carbonate) to produce the form of lime called ''quicklime'' (calcium oxide). The chemical equation for this reaction is: CaCO3 + heat → CaO + CO2 This reaction can tak ...

s and

coal pit Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extrac ...

s in the area.

St John the Baptist church

The parish church of St John the Baptist was first built in the 13th century. The current rock-faced,

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

church has a

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

arch from that period and the blocked

chamfer A chamfer ( ) is a transitional edge between two faces of an object. Sometimes defined as a form of bevel, it is often created at a 45° angle between two adjoining right-angled faces. Chamfers are frequently used in machining, carpentry, fur ...

ed pointed doorway may also be from that century. The tower, on the west side of the church and built within the nave, is from the 16th century. In 1891, the church was rebuilt, retaining some of its historic features, by Nicholson and Son. Including the nave and tower are a west porch and lower chancel. The windows of the church include a

lancet window A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a sharp pointed arch at its top. This arch may or may not be a steep lancet arch (in which the compass centres for drawing the arch fall outside the opening). It acquired the "lancet" name from its rese ...

near the gabled porch, three

trefoil A trefoil () is a graphic form composed of the outline of three overlapping rings, used in architecture, Pagan and Christian symbolism, among other areas. The term is also applied to other symbols with a threefold shape. A similar shape with f ...

ed lights for the west window, ogee lights, chancel windows with 20th-century glass, and a south nave window with glass from 1890. Within the church, the lead-lined font is from 1689.

Governance

The parish council meets at the Aston Ingham Village Hall, which is also used for other community activities and entertainment.

References

External links

Village web pages

Images of Aston Ingham
geograph.org.uk {{authority control Villages in Herefordshire