Bishop's Cleeve

Bishop's Cleeve is an urbanised village in the Borough of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, England, near Cheltenham. The village lies at the foot of Cleeve Hill, the highest point in the Cotswolds.

History

Bishops Cleeve and Woodmancote as seen from Cleeve Hill.

It dates back at least to the 8th Century, though Iron Age and Roman remains have also been found. At the time of the Domesday Book in 1086, there were approximately 100 people living there. The oldest houses still standing are from the 12th and 13th centuries. The centrepiece of the village is the church, St Michael & All Angels, which has many Norman features. The tower and the nave arches were rebuilt in the 17th century when other features were enlarged.

St Michael's & All Angels Church

At the beginning of the 20th century Bishop's Cleeve had a population of barely 400, but at the 2001 census the figure was 9,944. Yet this increase has been mainly due not to close proximity to Cheltenham, but to the arrival of major employers in Bishop's Cleeve itself. The village expanded first in the 1950s with the opening of the nearby Smith's Industries factory, many new houses being built for the workers. Bishop's Cleeve secondary school was opened in 1956. The village expanded again in the mid 1980s. A long-awaited bypass for the main A435 road was constructed in the late 1980s, and further housing was constructed around the new road. At around the same time a large office building for Eagle Star Insurance (now Zurich Financial Services) was constructed alongside the old Priory building.

Bishop's Cleeve was once served by a railway line, a relative latecomer in British railway history, opened on 1 June 1906 by the Great Western Railway and running from Stratford-upon-Avon to Cheltenham, part of a main line from Birmingham to the South West and South Wales. Bishop's Cleeve station along with almost all others on this section closed on 7 March 1960 and was subsequently demolished, but the nearby Cheltenham Racecourse station remained in operation for royal visits to the Racecourse until 1965; through passenger services continued until 25 March 1968, and freight until 1976 when a derailment at Broadway damaged the line. It was decided not to bring the section back into use and by the early 1980s it had been dismantled. The stretch between Toddington and Cheltenham Racecourse has since been reconstructed and reopened as a heritage railway called the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway, but there are as yet no plans to restore Bishop's Cleeve station.

Bishop's Cleeve was also served, though less well, by a station called Cleeve on the present Birmingham to Bristol main line (ex-Midland Railway, later LMS), about 1.5 miles to the west, but this station closed on 20 February 1950.

Bishop's Cleeve is bordered by the village of Woodmancote to the east, the former Great Western railway line dividing the two parishes.

Education

Bishops Cleeve has two primary schools^[1] and a secondary school.^[2]

Development

In 2010, the development of 450 houses began at Homelands farm, with the developers, Comparo, wanting to build an extra 550 houses on top of this. Although this was rejected by Tewkesbury Borough Council in 2007, the developers have since launched an appeal to the Secretary of State for communities and local government about the decision, which has triggered a full planning inquiry. The main concerns about this development is the strain on the local infrastructure it will create, and the fact that the area is a flooding 'hotspot'.

References

1. ^ Bishops Cleeve Primary School and Grangefield School
2. ^ Cleeve Comprehensive

External links

Fossil ammonite collected near Bishop's Cleeve

• St Michael's Church Bishop's Cleeve
• Bishop's Cleeve Parish Council
• Bishop's Cleeve Tithe Barn
• BBC Gloucestershire: 360° photos of Bishop's Cleeve
• BBC Gloucestershire: Bishop's Cleeve photos
• This is Gloucestershire

Coordinates: 51°56′51″N 2°03′39″W / 51.9474°N 2.0609°W / 51.9474; -2.0609