Little Sodbury is a village and former

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 ...

, now in the parish of Horton, in the

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, Kingswood, Thornbury, Filton, Patchway and Bradley Stoke. The southern p ...

district, in the ceremonial county of

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. It is located between

Chipping Sodbury Chipping Sodbury is a market town and civil parish in the unitary authority area of South Gloucestershire, in the county of Gloucestershire, England. It is situated 13 miles (21 km) north-east of Bristol and directly east of Yate. The town ...

, to the west, Old Sodbury to the south,

Badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racket (sports equipment), racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net (device), net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per s ...

, and the

A46 road The A46 is a major A road in England. It starts east of Bath, Somerset and ends in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, but it does not form a continuous route. Large portions of the old road have been lost, bypassed, or replaced by motorway developme ...

to the east and Horton and Hawkesbury Upton, to the north. In 2011 the parish had a population of 113. On 1 April 2023 the parish was abolished and merged with Horton. The "manor of Sodbury" comprises the nearby

and Old Sodbury: it is distinct from that of Little Sodbury. Little Sodbury's Iron Age

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 ...

reshaped by the Romans is accessible from the village via the Cotswold Way at . There is a Royal Observer Corps post at . Little Sodbury is one of three Thankful Villages in Gloucestershire – those rare places that suffered no fatalities during the

Great War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

of 1914 to 1918. The 15th century Little Sodbury Manor was the home of Sir John Walsh who employed

William Tyndale William Tyndale (; sometimes spelled ''Tynsdale'', ''Tindall'', ''Tindill'', ''Tyndall''; – October 1536) was an English Biblical scholar and linguist who became a leading figure in the Protestantism, Protestant Reformation in the year ...

as chaplain and tutor to his grandchildren in 1522–23; by tradition he began his translation of the Bible in his bedroom here. The manor retains the porch and

Great Hall A great hall is the main room of a royal palace, castle or a large manor house or hall house in the Middle Ages. It continued to be built in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries, although by then the family used the great cha ...

, with a timber roof resting on corbels carved as shield-bearing angels, of the fifteenth-century courtyard house. The house fell into disrepair in the nineteenth century, but was restored by architect Sir Harold Brakspear for Lord Grosvenor and later Baron de

Tuyll The Tuyll family is a Dutch noble family, with familial and historical links to England, whose full name is Van Tuyll van Serooskerken. Several knights, members of various courts, literary figures, generals, ambassadors, statesmen and explorers ...

. St Adeline's Church was built in 1859 by William James.

References

* David Verey, ''Gloucestershire: the Cotswolds'', The Buildings of England edited by

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (195 ...

, 2nd ed. (1979) , pp. 303–304 * Anthony Emery, "Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales, 1300-1500: Southern England", Cambridge University Press, 2006, , p. 115

External links

Sodbury Players
- local amateur dramatics group in the Yate and Chipping Sodbury Area * GENUKI
Little Sodbury

The Modern Antiquarian: Little Sodbury Hillfort
Villages in South Gloucestershire District Hill forts in Gloucestershire Former civil parishes in Gloucestershire {{SouthGloucestershire-geo-stub