Shirehampton

infobox UK place
country = England
latitude= 51.4945
longitude= -2.6712
map_type=Bristol
official_name= Shirehampton
static_

population=
unitary_england= Bristol
region= South West England
lieutenancy_england= Bristol
constituency_westminster= Bristol North West
post_town= BRISTOL
postcode_district = BS
postcode_area= BS
dial_code= 0117
os_grid_reference= ST535775

Shirehampton, near Avonmouth, at the north-western edge of the city of Bristol, England, is a district of Bristol which originated as a separate village. It retains something of its village feel, having a short identifiable High Street with the parish church situated among shops, and is still thought of as a village by many of its 6867 inhabitants. [1991 census data; 2001 data not readily separable from Avonmouth.] Although separated from Bristol by the length of the Avon Gorge and a reach of the River Avon, the community is still a convenient location from which to reach all parts of the city and its work environment. Travel is also easy from Shirehampton into Gloucestershire, South Wales and Somerset since it lies within easy reach of all the main motorways in the area, including the M5, the new M4 Second Severn Crossing, and the M49, and it is served by the A4 Portway and by Shirehampton railway station, which allow access to the city centre. It is informally known to local people as "Shire", which is also the title of the monthly community newspaper and [http://www.shire.org.uk/ website] .

ituation

Shirehampton looks across the Avon towards the rural Failand Hills of Somerset. For many centuries the only direct connection with Somerset was via a small rowed ferry which crossed from near The Lamplighters pub ("The Lamps") to the village of Pill, Somerset opposite. This state of affairs continued until the completion of the M5 Avonmouth Bridge in 1974. From the limestone ridge of Penpole Point (whose name meant approximately 'Land's End' in the Celtic language spoken here before English), there used to be extensive and far-reaching views across the River Severn to the distant hills of South Wales, but tree growth has restricted this once spectacular prospect.

Prehistory

The gravel terraces above the River Avon provide some of the earliest evidence of human occupation in the British Isles. Here and around Ham Green and Pill, on the opposite bank of the Avon, humans with a Lower Palaeolithic (earliest phase of the Old Stone Age) culture (possibly of the hominid type "Homo heidelbergensis") left tools and debris behind at an uncertain time some 250-400,000 years ago. [ [http://www.bristol.gov.uk/ccm/content/Leisure-Culture/Local-History-Heritage/archaeology/palaeolithic-in-bristol.en Bates 2003] , replaced by [http://www.bristol.gov.uk/ccm/cms-service/stream/asset/?asset_id=1021115 Bates and Wenban-Smith 2005] ; HTML version of former still accessible] [ [http://www.somerset.gov.uk/media/8E5/33/palmes.pdf Hosfield 2005: 28; map on 30] ] For comparison, the well-known Palaeolithic sites at [http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/Web/Corporate/pages.nsf/6cf1c8ffa4fdcd638025693500329f8a/0e2435fa6583763480256a2500327624?OpenDocument Waverley Wood] , Warwickshire, and Boxgrove Quarry, Sussex, have artefacts from about 500,000 years ago, and Boxgrove has yielded bones of "H. heidelbergensis".

History

Shirehampton was originally a detached part of the parish of Westbury-on-Trym, separated from the main part of Westbury by a swathe of Henbury parish, which included Kingsweston, the great house whose inhabitants have had a considerable impact on Shirehampton as employers and benefactors. The area is on record as part of the estate of "Stoke", which was granted by King Offa of Mercia to the bishop of Worcester in about 795, along with the district that is now called Stoke Bishop, and there are two later Anglo-Saxon documents about the same pieces of land. [ Sawyer 1968, documents 139/146, 1187, 1433.] , [Higgins 2004.] The place was originally called simply "Hampton", meaning 'large farming estate' or 'farm enclosed on several sides', and later became known as 'sharny Hampton', meaning 'dungy Hampton'. The name was "cleaned up" in Elizabethan times to its current form. [Smith 1964.]

A priory of the Benedictine abbey of St Mary, Cormeilles, in Normandy, is sometimes said to have been established at Shirehampton in the early Middle Ages, and the converted fifteenth-century tithe barn in the High Street is believed to have belonged to the monastic estate. However, the place referred to in Domesday Book is certain to have been Kyre in Worcestershire, and there is no real connection between Shirehampton and Cormeilles apart from the building stones exchanged by the two communities in 1963 on the strength of the supposed historical connection. The legend has got out of control; French Wikipédia (St.-Pierre-de-Cormeilles) carries the story that there is a replica of Cormeilles abbey at Shirehampton.

Shirehampton became ecclesiastically separate in 1844 when the chapel of ease of St Mary, dating from at least Elizabethan times, was raised to parish church status. The original chapel building, about which nothing is known, had been replaced in 1727 and this had been rebuilt in 1827. This Gothic-style building burnt down in 1928 and was replaced by the current church, designed by Percival Hartland Thomas, which has a distinctive electric carillon installed in 1959 with the aid of a benefaction from parishioner Mabel Creber. [Thomas 1993, pp. 108-35.]

There are three churches of other denominations in Shirehampton: Methodist, Baptist, and Roman Catholic, in order of establishment of their congregations.

Avonmouth was a part of Shirehampton parish until 1917. It developed as the main element of the port of Bristol in the later nineteenth century, attracting many workers to settle there and in Shirehampton proper; it had grown so big by 1917 that it was given separate status, for both ecclesiastical and civil purposes. Shirehampton itself expanded considerably in the later nineteenth century, and was absorbed, with Avonmouth, by the city of Bristol in 1904. After World War I, the city built a great deal of decent social ("council") housing here, and this has largely determined the present character of the place. Along the High Street there remains a fair sprinkling of the larger houses which typified the place before 1900, often (like Twyford House and The Wylands) converted to public use; some have been demolished and replaced by small infill estates (like Penlea); some have been retained and surrounded by other houses (such as the former vicarage partly retaining some of the supposed priory's construction); and some have gone altogether like the ancient manor house, of sixteenth-century appearance, which has been lost to road widening and a row of 1960s shops.

Benefactions

As Shirehampton and Avonmouth grew, the "squires" of Kingsweston, notably Philip Napier Miles (1865-1935), gave many benefactions to the district, including land for churches, war memorials and social amenities. Among these important gifts was the [http://www.digitalbristol.org/members/shireweb/hall/hall.htm Public Hall] of 1904, [Helme 2004.] whose main claim to fame is perhaps that it was the venue of the first performance of Vaughan Williams' violin rhapsody "The Lark Ascending", played with piano accompaniment by Marie Hall, in 1920. The beautiful Little Park or Shirehampton Park was given to the National Trust after World War I, and is used as a golf course.

Amenities

Shirehampton is well provided with churches, schools, sporting facilities (some in neglect in 2008), shops and pubs. It has a number of fine public open spaces and interesting antiquities nearby. These include Kingsweston Roman Villa (whose ruins are visible by the roadside in the modern suburb of Lawrence Weston), Blaise Castle Estate, and Blaise Castle House Museum, in addition to Shirehampton Park.

Other antiquities

On the banks of the River Avon stands the Old Powder House. It was built in the late 18th century to store gunpowder, which was not allowed into Bristol docks. It is a grade II listed building. [cite web | title=Powder houses and jetty | work=Images of England | url=http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/search/details.aspx?id=380921 | accessdate=2007-02-20] The village war memorial stands by Shirehampton Road north of the golf course, not far from the site of the now dry Rush Pool, a pool formerly used by drovers bringing cattle from Wales across the Severn to market in Bristol.

Ecology

Shirehampton, in particular the woodland overlooking Horseshoe Bend in the Avon (a National Nature Reserve), is well known as being the main location for certain rare plant species including the true service tree "(Sorbus domestica)" and two other whitebeams, "Sorbus eminens" and "Sorbus anglica." The nationally scarce large-leaved lime "(Tilia platyphyllos)" also occurs, as it does elsewhere in the Severn basin, and rare herbaceous plants include field garlic "(Allium oleraceum)" and pale St. John's-wort "(Hypericum montanum)." The narrow saltmarsh below the wood contains two nationally scarce vascular plant species, slender hare's-ear "(Bupleurum tenuissimum)" and long-stalked orache "(Atriplex longipes)."

References and sources

*Bates, M.R. (2003) A brief review of deposits containing Palaeolithic artefacts in the Shirehampton Area of Bristol and their regional significance. Brecon: TerraNova.
*Bates, M.R, and F.F. Wenban-Smith (2005) Palaeolithic research framework for the Bristol Avon basin. Bristol City Council.
*Helme, Judy (2004) "Shirehampton Public Hall 1904-2004." Shirehampton Public Hall Committee.
*Higgins, David H. (2004) The Roman town of Abona and the Anglo-Saxon charters of Stoke Bishop of AD 969 and 984. "Bristol and Avon Archaeology" 19, 75-86.
*Sawyer, P.H., ed. (1968) "Anglo-Saxon charters." London: Royal Historical Society.
*Smith, A.H. (1964) "The place-names of Gloucestershire", vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Survey of English Place-Names vol. 40).
*Thomas, Ethel (1983) "Shirehampton story." Privately published (2nd end 1993).
*Thomas, Ethel (2002) "The continuing story of Shirehampton." Privately published.

ee also

* Avonmouth
* Bristol
* Horseshoe Bend, Shirehampton
* Kings Weston House
* Philip Napier Miles

External links

* [http://www.shire.org.uk Shirehampton Community Web Site]
* [http://www.shirehamptonparkgolfclub.co.uk/ Shirehampton Golf Club]
* [http://www.bristol-city.gov.uk/outdoorlife/blaise_estate.html Blaise Castle Estate]
* [http://www.bristol-city.gov.uk/mus/kings.html Kingsweston Roman Villa]
* [http://www.bristol-city.gov.uk/mus/blaise.html Blaise Castle House Museum]
* [http://www.shirehampton.2day.ws St Mary's Church Shirehampton]