Arlingham


Arlingham is a village and civil parish in the Stroud District of Gloucestershire, England. The 2021 Census recorded a parish population of 533. The parish contains the hamlets of Milton End, Overton and Priding. The next parish to the east is Fretherne with Saul.

Geography

Arlingham lies at the western end of the horseshoe loop of the River Severn, known as the "Horseshoe
Bend", looking across the water to Newnham on Severn and the Forest of Dean. Access to Arlingham is across Fretherne bridge over the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal, or Sandfield Bridge at Saul Junction. Having the canal on one side and the River Severn on three sides of the parish and a single lane connecting it to the villages to the East, it has developed a distinct identity. Its rural character is still maintained, having some ten working farms with dairy and beef herds and arable land. Although close to the river, unlike areas upriver of Gloucester, Arlingham does not have a high flood risk.
The area has many public footpaths, including a section of the Severn Way. An illustrated map, detailing four circular walks, can be downloaded from the Red Lion Web Site. Further walks, rides, routes and information can be found on
Trains to Worcester, Cheltenham, Gloucester, Stroud, Swindon and London call at Stonehouse railway station and trains to Bristol, Bath and Westbury and Gloucester stop at Cam and Dursley railway station.

Architecture

Arlingham is in a conservation area, and has a large number of historic buildings, many of them listed. The attractive, medieval Church of St Mary the Virgin displays good quality architectural work of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and is an example of the Decorated Gothic style of architecture. It is made of local blue lias stone. The tower was built of squared oolite Cotswold stone in 1372. 'Remarkably, evidence is provided by the contract for the building of the church tower. Such medieval contracts are rare and the Arlingham contract, which survived amongst the Berkeley archives, is especially valuable for the evidence it provides about the building process. The contract was drawn up in Latin and was made between the parishioners of whom nineteen are named, including John of Yate, William of Erlyngham, the Vicar whose name was Roger, ‘and all the parishioners of the church of Erlyngham’, on the one part, and the mason who undertook to build the tower on the other. The mason was Nicholas Wyshonger from Gloucester, so that the Arlingham tower was not built by any specialist team of travelling craftsmen but by a local builder. Some work had previously been done on the tower which was already several feet high, for Nicholas Wyshonger agreed to ‘build, construct and finish the belltower of the church of Erlyngham in the same manner as it had been started’. The work was to be finished within three years. The mason was to provide floors within the tower, held up by corbels and a spiral stairway with doors at the top and bottom. The tower was to have a fine window on the west side and four small windows, one on each side at the top stage where the bells would hang. These windows survive and the workmanship can still be admired after six centuries.' The Church still has some of the original stained glass windows dating from the mid-fourteenth century. These are some of the oldest stained glass windows in Gloucestershire. In the churchyard there are numerous finely carved headstones, with beautiful lettering.

Governance

The village falls in the 'Severn' electoral ward. This ward starts in the north east at Moreton Valence then follows the M5 motorway south west to Slimbridge. The total ward population at the 2011 census was 4,760.

History

Situated in the horseshoe loop of the Severn, Arlingham has much in its favour as a site for settlement, so it is quite possible that dwellings have existed on or near the present site for thousands of years, possibly as far back as the Stone Age, and evidence has been found in the area of Bronze Age and Iron Age settlers.

Roman era

Indications of a Roman settlement have been found to the north of Passage Road and Romano-British pottery has been found in the area, including along the river bank at Arlingham Warth, indicating that Arlingham was probably a wetland settlement of Roman Britain, possibly centred around iron workings. Numerous dense concentrations of primitive iron-making bloomery slag are distributed over the arable land south of Passage Pill. "It is very likely that Romano-British farmers organised the building of the first flood banks and drainage ditches or rhynes, to bring more of the marshland into cultivation."
In the 6th century the Western Roman Empire finally collapsed and Arlingham became a Saxon village or "ham". and part of the tribal kingdom of Hwicce. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the kingdom was established in 577 after "Cuthwine and Ceawlin fought against the Britons and killed three Kings, Conmail, Condidan, and Farinmail at the battle at Dyrham; and they captured three of their cities, Gloucester, Cirencester and Bath". Hwicce included most of Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Bath north of the River Avon, plus small parts of Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire and north-west Wiltshire. After 628, the kingdom became a sub-kingdom of Mercia. Mercia dominated England south of the River Humber, as well as Hwicca, Mercia incorporated five of the other six kingdoms. Anglo-Saxon England remained a collection of tribal kingdoms until 927 when it was united as the Kingdom of England by King Æthelstan. 790 saw the first Viking raids and the period from this date until the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 is commonly known as the Viking Age. Historians believe that Vikings sailed up the River Severn and fought against the Anglo-Saxons and that in 894 AD King Alfred the Great fought the Vikings in a bloody battle at Minchinhampton, about 10 miles from Arlingham. Fighting could have ranged over a wide area of the Vale of Berkeley. In 2008, a wrought iron axe, believed to be Viking, was found in a field at Slimbridge.

Norman Conquest

After the Norman Conquest, William the Conqueror undertook a wholesale redistribution of land from the English to the Norman nobles. His "Great Survey", the Domesday Book completed at the end of 1086, records Arlingham as "Erlingeham" as being "King's land and part of the Manor of Berkely, containing 1400 acres", making Arlingham an exclave of the Hundred of Berkeley.

Fishing

In the 12th century the Abbot of St. Augustine's Abbey Bristol, had manorial land in Arlingham, which included fishing rights in the River Severn. Historic documents show that due to the abundance of fish in the River Severn, such as sturgeon, salmon, lamprey and alosinae or shad, fishing was a vital source of food, employment and trade from medieval times until the 19th century, when construction of navigation weirs, to assist the increasingly large vessels traverse of the River Severn, led to a rapid decline in the fish population. St Augustine's Manor House in Arlingham stood on the site of the present St. Augustine's farmhouse.

Church and other historic buildings

The earliest record of Arlingham church is in 1146, when the founder, Roger of Berkeley, a member of the Berkeley family and Baron of Dursley gave Arlingham church and its possessions to the Priory of St. Leonard Stanley. His daughter, Alice, married Maurice, son of Robert Fitzharding, who was given the manor of Berkeley by Henry II and became the 1st Lord of Berkeley. "In 1154 the manor of Arlingham was officially allotted to Robert Fitzharding and became known as Arlingham Court. A manor house was built on land opposite the Church, now known as The Grove or Court Sands". The early Berkeley deeds mention Hugh de Wike, in 1190, and his son Peter de Wika or de Wyke in 1220. in 1243 he was granted a lease of land in Berkeley and built the original Wick Court but sold it to the fourth Lord and Earl of Berkeley in the 14th century. "It was the Berkeley's who used their private standing army to strengthen and expand the new river flood banks to gain more land from the river". In 1327 John Berkeley's daughter Margaret, married John atte Yate of Arlingham and Arlingham Court passed into the Yate family. Between 1347 and 1351 was the time of the Black Death across Europe. Near Royal Orchard is a field formerly known as "The Pest Leaze" where, according to tradition, a large number of people were buried at the time of the plague. The Dursley Berkeley line ended in an heiress who married Thomas Wykes in the 15th century. The Manor House at Arlingham Court is believed to be substantially re-built in the mid 15th century. On 5 September 1538, following the split with Rome, Thomas Cromwell, minister to Henry VIII, issued an injunction requiring the details of baptisms, marriages and burials to be kept in a Parish register. In 1539 the oldest baptism was registered in Arlingham church. Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, in 1542 the Abbey's manor and land in Arlingham were passed to the Dean and Chapter of the Bristol Cathedral, Around 1566 Slowwe Manor and estate was purchased by Thomas Hodges, acquiring manorial dues in the process, "Slo" or "Sloo" House as it was originally called, was originally the property of Thomas Pavy and had several owners before being purchased by Thomas Hodges, thence descended down to John Sayer, the latter states in his book that he believes, therefore, that much of the house probably originates from the 15th century, though it was substantially rebuilt in the 18th century and further extended in the 19th century.

Flood

In the 17th century Arlingham experienced some severe flooding. 1607 saw The Great Flood of Arlingham. This was part of the Bristol Channel floods, 1607. Some scientists believe this may have been a storm surge, a combination of meteorological extremes and a high tide. However, Professor Simon Haslett of Bath Spa University and Australian geologist Ted Bryant of the University of Wollongong, published a research paper in 2002, in which they argue that there is evidence to suggest this may have been caused by a tsunami. As a result of this flooding, the current of the River Severn changed. The riverbanks were strengthened and the area now known as "The Warth" was enclosed and recovered from the river. Modern sources give the date of this flood as 1607, whereas older sources, give the date as 1606. This is due to the use of Old Style and New Style dates. Older sources use the Julian calendar, where the new year starts on Lady Day, 25 March, whereas more modern sources use the Gregorian calendar, with the new year starting January 1. In some sources both dates are given i.e. 1606/1607.