Little Stoke is a village in the parish of Stoke Gifford, situated 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, Kingswood, Thornbury, Filton, Patchway and Bradley Stoke. The southern p ...

, England. It is surrounded by

Patchway Patchway is a town and civil parish in South Gloucestershire, England, situated north-north west of central Bristol. The town has become an overflow settlement for Bristol and is contiguous with Bristol's urban area, along with the nearby towns ...

Stoke Gifford Stoke Gifford is a neighbourhood and Civil parish, parish and Wards and electoral divisions of the United Kingdom, electoral ward in the South Gloucestershire district, in the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire, England. Formerly a separate ...

and

Bradley Stoke Bradley Stoke is a town and civil parish in South Gloucestershire, England, situated north-northeast of Bristol city centre.OS Explorer Map, Bristol and Bath, Keynsham & Marshfield. Scale: 1:25 000.Publisher: Ordnance Survey B4 edition (2013). ...

. Home to

Patchway railway station Patchway railway station is on the South Wales Main Line, serving the town of Patchway and village of Stoke Gifford in South Gloucestershire, England. It is from . Its three letter station code is PWY. It is managed by Great Western Railway ( ...

, a minor stop on the railway network, the

railway line Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of land transport, next to road ...

separates Little Stoke from the large

Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...

factories in nearby

Filton Filton is a town and civil parish in South Gloucestershire, England, north of Bristol. Along with nearby Patchway and Bradley Stoke, Filton forms part of the Bristol urban area and has become an overflow settlement for the city. Filton has la ...

. Gipsy Patch Lane Bridge provides access under the line. Little Stoke is home to a large playing field and a

community hall A community centre, community center, or community hall is a public location where members of a community gather for group activities, social support, public information, and other purposes. They may be open for the whole community or for a sp ...

. The community hall is now home to a café - ‘Little Stoke Community Cafe’. Near the railway arch are some local shops including a post office. Many of the road names are linked to engines produced in the 1950s and 1960s at what is now the Rolls-Royce factory. The area originally consisted of many

council house A council house, corporation house or council flat is a form of British Public housing in the United Kingdom, public housing built by Local government in the United Kingdom, local authorities. A council estate is a building complex containing ...

s and post World War II prefabs. In recent years, some of the houses have been renovated; however, some owners have kept the older style of house. Little Stoke has one

Public House A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption Licensing laws of the United Kingdom#On-licence, on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the ...

, The Stokers (formally The Magpies), on Gipsy Patch Lane, and one Social Club (Little Stoke Social Club), on Braydon Avenue. School children attend Little Stoke

Primary School A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...

and then move on to AbbeyWood High School, on New Road in nearby Filton; or to the nearby Patchway High School. Some pupils travel further afield to Bradley Stoke Community School in Bradley Stoke The Ridings High School in Winterbourne or to The Castle School or Marlwood School (in Thornbury and Alveston respectively). Stoke Gifford Parish Council gained notoriety amongst the running world when it became the first council to vote to impose a charge on runners who run at Little Stoke parkrun every Saturday morning.

parkrun Parkrun (stylised as parkrun) is a collection of 5K run, events for runners, walkers and volunteers that take place every Saturday morning at more than 2,000 locations in 23 countries across five continents. Parkrun was founded by Paul Sinto ...

organises free running events in over 800 parks worldwide and this was the first and only council to take this step when it made its decision on 12 April 2016 by a vote of 6 to 4. The Parish Council cited wear and tear on paths as its justification. Because of this, Little Stoke parkrun has now closed. Little Stoke has a

football team A football team is a group of players selected to play together in the various team sports known as football. Such teams could be selected to play in a match against an opposing team, to represent a football club, group, state or nation, an All-st ...

called Stokeside FC who play in the Bristol & District League as well as Little Stoke F.C who currently play in the Gloucestershire County League and Stoke Lane, which gets its name from the road Stoke Lane, which runs through Little Stoke. The club's home shirt for all the teams is black and white stripes. Martin Davis, who lived at Little Stoke Farm, has published a book about local history: ''The Farmer and the Goose with the Golden Eyes: A Celebration of a Vanished Part of Rural South Gloucestershire and the Founding of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust at Slimbridge''.

References

External links

History of Little StokeSouthern Brooks Archaeology
{{Areas of Bristol Villages in South Gloucestershire District