Nympsfield 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the

English county The counties of England are a type of subdivision of England. Counties have been used as administrative areas in England since Anglo-Saxon times. There are three definitions of county in England: the 48 ceremonial counties used for the purpo ...

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 ...

. It is located around four miles south-west of the town of

Stroud Stroud is a market town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It is the main town in Stroud District. The town's population was 13,500 in 2021. Sited below the western escarpment of the Cotswold Hills, at the meeting point of the ...

. As well as Nympsfield village, the parish contains the

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...

of Cockadilly. The population taken at the 2011 census was 382.

Sights

Nympsfield is on the path of a former

Roman road Roman roads ( ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Em ...

, which ran from

Cirencester Cirencester ( , ; see #Pronunciation, below for more variations) is a market town and civil parish in the Cotswold District of Gloucestershire, England. Cirencester lies on the River Churn, a tributary of the River Thames. It is the List of ...

Arlingham Arlingham is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Stroud District of Gloucestershire, England. The 2021 Census recorded a parish population of 533 (271 males, 262 females (129 in the age range 0-17, 289 18-64year olds an ...

. The village has a pub, the Rose and Crown, a working men's club, both

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

(St Joseph's) and

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

(St Bartholomew's) churches and a Catholic primary school (St Joseph's). Nearby Woodchester Mansion, an unfinished gothic mansion, has always been associated with the village, as Nympsfield's history of

Catholicism The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

tied it to the Leigh family, who built the mansion. Parking is just outside the village and a free

minibus A minibus, microbus, or minicoach is a passenger-carrying motor vehicle that is designed to carry more people than a multi-purpose vehicle or minivan, but fewer people than a full-size bus. In the United Kingdom, the word "minibus" is us ...

to the mansion is operated by volunteers on days when it is open to the public. A Neolithic burial site known as the Nympsfield Long Barrow is located adjacent to the nearby Coaley Peak picnic site, around half a mile from the village. The Tudor Owlpen Manor, Hetty Pegler's Tump (a neolithic

long barrow Long barrows are a style of monument constructed across Western Europe in the fifth and fourth millennia BCE, during the Early Neolithic period. Typically constructed from earth and either timber or stone, those using the latter material repres ...

) and Uley Bury (an Iron Age hill fort) are also nearby. Nympsfield is the home of the Bristol and Gloucestershire

Gliding Gliding is a recreational activity and competitive air sports, air sport in which pilots fly glider aircraft, unpowered aircraft known as Glider (sailplane), gliders or sailplanes using naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmospher ...

Club. Peter Hennessy, the constitutional historian, took the title Baron Hennessy of Nympsfield on receiving his peerage in 2010. Alfred Bird, inventor of egg-free custard and also baking powder, was born in Nympsfield in 1811.

Etymology

The name 'Nympsfield' is a mix of

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language *Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Foot ...

and

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 ...

, meaning 'Open land by the holy place'. The Celtic element of the name is ''nimet'' (holy place), and the Old English element is ''feld'' (field, open space). The earliest known recording of the village was as ''Nymdesfelda'' in 862 AD. 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 ...

, the settlement was recorded as ''Nimdesfelde''.

In fiction

Nympsfield and the Rose and Crown Inn appear in several scenes in the 2012 novel ''Caballito'' by Robin Baker. The author uses the fictional names Pegbury (for Nympsfield) and The Crown (for the inn) but from the description of location and interior it is clearly the Rose and Crown as it was in the early 1980s.

References

External links

Woodchester Mansion official websiteSt Josephs NympsfieldBristol and Gloucestershire Gliding ClubStroud Voices mid 20th century oral history from Nympsfield residents
{{authority control Villages in Gloucestershire Stroud District Civil parishes in Gloucestershire

Sights

Etymology

In fiction

See also

References

External links