- Tutshill
Tutshill is a small village within the parish of
Tidenham in theForest of Dean ,Gloucestershire ,England .It is located on the eastern bank of the
River Wye , which forms the boundary withWales at this point and which separates the village from the town ofChepstow . The village ofWoodcroft adjoins Tutshill to the north, and across the A48 road to the south is the village ofSedbury .The name derives from the ruined "tut", a local term for watchtower, on top of the hill overlooking the Wye and its ancient crossing point at Castleford. After the town of Chepstow developed and a bridge was built over the Wye, the main road between England and Wales followed the steep hill directly up the river bank, now a footpath, between the bridge and Tutshill, until a new road looping around Castleford was opened in 1808. [Ivor Waters, "Turnpike Roads - the Chepstow and New Passage Turnpike Districts", 1985, ISBN 0-906134-31-5] This road carried traffic between the two countries until a new bridge was built at Chepstow in 1988, whereupon Tutshill was bypassed.
The village was the childhood home, from the age of 9 in 1974, of the author
J. K. Rowling . She attended Tutshill Church of England Primary School before moving on at the age of 11 to the nearbyWyedean School in Sedbury. In the "Harry Potter " books, one of the British Quidditch teams is named Tutshill Tornados. Furthermore, in the bookHarry Potter and the Deathly Hallows , a passage is set in the Forest of Dean, where Harry, Hermione and Ron are camping and discover the sword of Gryffindor where it has been hidden by Severus Snape.References
External links
*oscoor gbx|ST539946
* [http://www.geograph.org.uk/search.php?i=3687627 photos of Tutshill and surrounding area on geograph]
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