Uley

infobox UK place
country = England
official_name= Uley
os_grid_reference= ST790984
latitude= 51.68396
longitude= -2.30515
population=
shire_district= Stroud
shire_county= Gloucestershire
region= South West England
constituency_westminster= Stroud
post_town= DURSLEY
postcode_district = GL11
postcode_area= GL
dial_code=

Uley (pronEng|ˈjuːli, rhymes with "Julie") is a village in the county of Gloucestershire, England. It is situated in a wooded valley in the Cotswold escarpment, on the road between Dursley and Stroud. The population is around 1,100, but was much greater during the early years of the industrial revolution, when the village was renowned for producing blue cloth. The placename (recorded as "Euuelege" in the Domesday Book) probably signifies 'clearing in a yew wood'.

History

The Romans built a temple at West Hill, near Uley, on the site of an earlier prehistoric shrine. Following the laying of a water main pipe there in 1976, many discoveries were made including numerous [http://www.csad.ox.ac.uk/RIB/RIBIV/jp4.htm Roman writing tablets] or lead curse tablet from the temple area. These writing tablets appear often to relate to theft, and here the mention of animals and farm implements is a regular theme. There is an ongoing project to catalogue all those found at West Hill online. [http://curses.csad.ox.ac.uk/sites/uley-home.shtml] . Other remains from this temple, including a fine stone head of Mercury, can now be seen in the British Museum. There were significant Roman villas nearby at Frocester, Kingscote, and Woodchester, and there is a little known Roman villa beneath Cam Peak on the road into Dursley.

St Giles's Church near the village green was designed by the 19th-century architect Samuel Sanders Teulon. His building replaced an earlier church dating back to Norman times, which had in its turn replaced a Saxon church. The nearby church of the Holy Cross at Owlpen also has Saxon origins: the church there was rebuilt in 1828 by Samuel Manning and enlarged and decorated in 1876 by James Piers St Aubyn. There were also non-conformist chapels at South St and Whitecourt until the early 1970s.

The village was once famous for its large number of pubs (around 14), lately reduced to a single hostelry (The Old Crown). Until the 1970s there was also a butcher's shop and a petrol station, these were subsequently replaced by antique shops and occasional restaurants, and now only a small village shop remains.

The area surrounding Whitecourt appears to have some considerable historical significance, with long associations to the Osborne family and a possible Roman road transecting from Kingscote to the East via Bencombe, crossing the Ewelme brook close to the previous mill buildings opposite Stoutshill and then transiting what is now Lampern View before exiting W towards Cam/Coaley; Fact|date=March 2007 elements clearly visible just uphill of Bencombe (as the road veers 90 degrees to the north) and to the West opposite the entrance to Angeston Grainge/Nursery (where it enters the wood as a paved and walled causeway.

The increased mechanisation of agriculture in the area (arable on top of the escarpment, sheep on it and cattle in the valleys) led to a gradual decline during the inter-war periods and this led to the construction of three local authority housing estates (South St, Lampern View and Raglan Way). However, increased mobility following the construction of the M4 and the Severn Bridge in the mid-1960s, together with an influx of skilled/managerial/professional migrants following e.g. the establishment of Berkeley power station, led to a steady middle-class gentrification of the village, witnessed by the construction of substantial detached homes at e.g. Court Gardens, South St and Green Close.

Amenities and surrounding locality

The following amenities and attractions are available in and around the village:

* North of the village is a Neolithic burial ground known as Hetty Pegler's Tump or Uley Long Barrow.
* The village has a brewery, Uley Brewery, which was established in the 1980s adjacent to the old blacksmiths near The Cut. Uley Bitter and other ales are brewed there.
* Uley's only remaining pub, the Old Crown, is situated on the village green, opposite the church.
* The Prema Arts Centre, founded in the 1970s, is located in a former Baptist Chapel in the village and offers educational courses in the arts and crafts, musical evenings, workshops, cultural events and evening classes in many subjects.
* The village primary school is small with just above 100 pupils. Uley Primary School can be found in Woodstock Terrace.
* A Reading Room (Library) burned down in the mid-1960s and has not been replaced.
* An ancient Iron Age hill fort called Uley Bury lies just above the village. The Cotswold Way, a popular trail path, runs close by.
* Downham Hill lies just to the west: it is known locally as 'Smallpox Hill' because of the smallpox isolation facility that stood on the top of the hill many years ago (masonry still visible).
* To the east is Owlpen Manor, a Tudor manor house connected with the arts and crafts movement, mainly built from the mid-fifteenth to early seventeenth centuries, but dating back to Saxon times. It was repaired by Norman Jewson in 1925-6, after one hundred years of neglect. Today it is a home of the Mander family.
* Stouts Hill, a neo-Gothic country house just outside the village, was the birthplace of the Gloucestershire historian, Samuel Rudder, and of the distinguished Persian scholar Edward Granville Browne. Built for the Gyde family, from the 1770s it was a seat of the Lloyd-Baker family, who in the 20th century let the house as a preparatory school. It included amongst its alumni Mark Phillips, Stephen Fry and Rik Mayall, but closed down in 1979.

Trivia

* In 1837, Moses Bendle Garlick, a weaver from Uley, migrated to Australia and settled just north of what is currently Adelaide; he named the settlement Uleybury.

* A brief shot of Uley is featured in episode 6 of series 3 of the Channel 4 comedy Peep Show. This is despite the fact the episode is set in the Quantocks which are, in fact, a considerable distance from the village.

References

* Ann Woodward and Peter Leach, "The Uley Shrines: Excavation of a ritual complex on West Hill, Uley 1977-79" (1993), English Heritage, ISBN 1-85074-303-7
* Alan Saville, "Uley Bury and Norbury Hillforts" (1983), Western Archaeological Trust, ISBN 0-904918-20-3
* Ed. Alan Bebbington, "A History of Uley, Gloucestershire" (2003), The Uley Society, ISBN 0-9544525-0-X
* Eilart Ekwall, "The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names" 4th edition. Oxford University Press, 1960, ISBN 0-19-869103-3

External links

* [http://community.stroud.gov.uk/default.asp?pid=40 Uley village website]
* [http://www.prema.demon.co.uk Prema Arts Centre]
* [http://cotswoldedge.org.uk/uley/uleybury.htm Uley Bury]
* [http://witcombe.sbc.edu/earthmysteries/EMPegler.html Hetty Pegler's Tump]
* [http://www.cotswoldway.gov.uk/ Cotswold Way]
* [http://www.jennermuseum.com/ The Jenner Museum]
* [http://www.owlpen.com/ Owlpen Manor]
* [http://www.uleybrewery.com/index.htm Uley Brewery]
* [http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/GLS/Uley/index.html Genealogy information on Uley]