Coordinates: 51°44′52″N 2°17′02″W / 51.74785°N 2.28386°W / 51.74785; -2.28386

Stonehouse
Stonehouse  Stonehouse shown within Gloucestershire
OS grid reference	SO805055
District	Stroud
Shire county	Gloucestershire
Region	South West
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	STONEHOUSE
Postcode district	GL10
Police	Gloucestershire
Fire	Gloucestershire
Ambulance	Great Western
EU Parliament	South West England
UK Parliament	Stroud
List of places: UK • England • Gloucestershire

Stonehouse, Gloucestershire is an urban area within the Stroud District, in the UK. It is home to a number of factories, such as Dairy Crest, Schlumberger and Dairy Partners. The town is close to the M5 motorway. Stonehouse railway station has a regular train service to London. The town is situated approximately three miles west of Stroud and twelve miles south of Gloucester.

History[link]

Stonehouse Manor[link]

Stonehouse was mentioned in Willam the Conqueror's Domesday Book written in 1086. There was a manor house built in stone - quite different from the many wattle and daub buildings that were normally found. And so the area was named Stanhus in the book. The name evoluted from Stanhus to Stonehouse : stān > stone + hūs > house, as an effect of the great vowel shift at the end of the Middle Ages.

Stonehouse town sign

William De Ow, a cousin of William the Conqueror, owned the manor, whose grounds included two mills and a vineyard. In 1327, one of the manor's masters, John Maltravers, was found guilty of involvement in the murder of Edward II in Berkeley Castle, and fled abroad.

The manor house burned down in 1908. Today, on the same site stands Stonehouse Court Hotel, a Grade II listed manor house, which is now a hotel. It is located next to St Cyr's Church and the Stroudwater Canal. One of the original mills remains in operation.

Features[link]

Doverow Hill is a former quarry and there are many surrounding hills and a small cliff that looks out onto the whole of Stonehouse.

The stone which gave the town its name was replaced by red brick as the builder's material of choice^{[citation needed]} . Due to the availability of raw materials in Stonehouse, brickmaking began there in 1856 with evidence of possible prior brickmaking as early as 1839 or 1840 and of as many as thirteen brickmaking sites altogether. The largest and last to close of the brickmakers, Stonehouse Brick and Tile Company Ltd., was located where the Rosedale housing estate^[1] now stands. It was founded in 1891, and by 1895 employed a large number of people in making pottery, terra-cotta, and bricks. The company closed in 1968 and the 202 foot high chimney was demolished. Bricks and other materials made by the company were not only used locally (notably in the Stonehouse police station^[2] and post office) and in other areas of Britain, but were also used as far away as Cape Town, Gibraltar, and Buenos Aires, with those used in Gibraltar transported there on the RMS Lusitania during her sea trials.^[3][4]

Amenities[link]

Town Hall and Post Office

A community Centre is located central to the Town's High Street, together with a festival of good shops, Post Office, Town hall, butchers, banks and building society. The town is well served by Doctors and Dentists alike.

Education[link]

Independent Schools[link]

One of the most well known establishments in the area is Wycliffe College, now a public school. Starting life in 1882, it incorporates Haywardsend, an old Tudor farmhouse.

Secondary Schools[link]

Maidenhill School is the town's comprehensive, 11-16 mixed secondary school.^[5]

Primary Schools[link]

In the town thereare two primary schools the Park Infant which host years reception- year2 and Park Junior school years 3-6 each school has two classes per year.

Churches[link]

The town's Parish church is St Cyr's Church, after St Cyriac or St Cyril.George Whitefield, the Gloucester-born evangelist, preached here^[6]

Other churches include Stonehouse Methodist. St Joseph's Catholic, a Baptist^[7] and the Bethel Church.

Stonehouse Live is a network of Christians bringing all the Churches torgether in Stonehouse.^[8]

Police Station[link]

Stonehouse had a Police Station until it was closed in late 2011. ^[9]

Sport[link]

The football club, Stonehouse Town F.C., has four teams, with the top one currently playing in the Northern Senior League.

Pubs[link]

The Woolpack Inn is one of the oldest buildings in Stonehouse (17 Century) and is certainly one of the oldest pubs in the town. It was the coaching hostelry for Stonehouse and the coach from Bath stopped there. There were 33 public houses and beer houses in Stonehouse in 1838, now there are only 2. The Spa in on Oldends Lane can also be considered one of Stonehouse's local inns.

Transport[link]

Bus services to Gloucester and Stroud are provided by Stagecoach, with other services to Cam, Dursley and the Stanley's

Good road communication is provided, with the M5 situated with 2 miles of Stonehouse town centre, with the major industrial area located to the west of the town off the A419

The town is served by Stonehouse railway station on the "Golden Valley Line", with a good and frequent service to London.

Growth[link]

Stonehouse development was partly due to good communicatiions for transport, In 1779, the Stroudwater Navigation, (now part of the Thames and Severn Canal) was cut and relics of the canal can still be seen. Ocean Bridge was an iron swing bridge where canal boats would turn. Once there was a repair yard here. Canal restoration is actively underway.

Business increased further when the land was prepared for the opening of the Midland Railway Station in 1844, and the Great Western Railway Station a year later. The Stonehouse and Nailsworth Railway opened a branch to Nailsworth in 1867 and Stroud in 1885.

World War 2[link]

When the threat of world war two became clear in the late 1930s, the Cotswolds were seen as a suitable location for the dispersement of aerospace shadow factories, being a safe place away from German bombers range. Smiths were co-located to Bishops Cleeve and Stonehouse was chosen as a good place to build factories for the manufacturers Sperry's Gyroscope Company, who moved to Bond's Mill and Hoffmann's Bearings located to Oldends Lane. These two factories employed many people during the war and for along time after wards ensuring employment in the town for many years.

On 12 September 1940, a lone Dornier flew along the Stroud Valley and photographed the area. Detailed mapping of the Sperry factory was noted by German Intelligence, in preparation for a raid in February 1943, although this never occurred.^[10]

Post War[link]

Rationalisation of the railways happened quickly after the Second World war, with with passenger services being suspended on the Stroud and Nailsworth branch in 1947, and to freight in the 1966. The Midland Railway Station was closed in 1965.

Stonehouse was connected to the national motorway network in 1971, when the M5 opened. In the late 20th century, Stonehouse saw substantial growth within industry; large multi-nationals such as ABB, International Intelligence Limited and Intelligent Armour Limited moving in to the area.

Housing development in Stonehouse continued during the post war period, with the Park Estate being built in the 1950's, and continuing through into the 21st Century, with the small development at Court View.

21st Century[link]

Stonehouse is very well situated for business and business growth due to its central UK location and close proximity to the motorway networks of the M5 & M4. Today Stonehouse has a large number of residential housing estates, including Council housing and a small High Street.

In 2011, Stonehouse High Street was made into a Community Shared Space, reopening in September 2011.^[11]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Stonehouse Town Council
• Stonehouse, Gloucestershire at the Open Directory Project
• Stonehouse History Group
• See Stonehouse Brick and Tile workers at work 1945

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2010)

Gloucestershire
Flag
Geography
Status	Ceremonial and (smaller) non-metropolitan county
Region	South West England
Area - Total - Admin. council - Admin. area	Ranked 16th 3,150 km2 (1,220 sq mi) Ranked 13th 2,653 km2 (1,024 sq mi)
Admin HQ	Gloucester
ISO 3166-2	GB-GLS
ONS code	23
NUTS 3	UKK13
Demography
Population - Total (2010 est.) - Density - Admin. council - Admin. pop.	Ranked 26th 858,300 272 /km2 (700 /sq mi) Ranked 20th 593,500
Ethnicity	97.3% White
Politics
Gloucestershire County Council Gloucestershire County Council http://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk
Executive	Conservative
Members of Parliament	Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (C) Richard Graham (C) Neil Carmichael (C) Mark Harper (C) Martin Horwood (LD) Laurence Robertson (C)
Districts
Gloucester Tewkesbury Cheltenham Cotswold Stroud Forest of Dean South Gloucestershire (Unitary)

Gloucestershire (ⁱ/ˈɡlɒstərʃər/ GLOSS-tər-shər; abbreviated Glos.) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean.

The county town is the city of Gloucester, and other principal towns include Cheltenham, Cirencester, Stroud, and Tewkesbury.

When considered as a ceremonial county, Gloucestershire borders the preserved county of Gwent in Wales (now Monmouthshire), and in England the ceremonial counties of Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Somerset. Ceremonially, it includes the area covered by the South Gloucestershire unitary authority.

According to a 2002 campaign by the charity Plantlife, the county flower of Gloucestershire is the Wild Daffodil.^[1]

History[link]

Gloucestershire is a historic county mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the 10th century, though the areas of Winchcombe and the Forest of Dean were not added until the late 11th century. Gloucestershire originally included the then "small town" of Bristol. The "local" rural community moved to the port city, (as Bristol was to become) and Bristol's population growth accelerated during the industrial revolution. Bristol became part of the administrative County of Avon in 1974.

Upon the abolition of Avon in 1996, the region north of Bristol became a unitary authority area of South Gloucestershire and is now part of the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire.

The official former postal county abbreviation was "Glos.", rather than the frequently used but erroneous "Gloucs." or "Glouc.".

In July 2007, Gloucestershire suffered the worst flooding in recorded British history, with tens of thousands of residents affected. The RAF conducted the largest peace time domestic operation in its history to rescue over 120 residents from flood affected areas. The damage was estimated at over £2 billion.^[2]

The county recovered rapidly from the disaster, investing in attracting tourists to visit the many sites and diverse range of shops in the area.

Economy[link]

This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Gloucestershire at current basic prices published (pp. 240–253) by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.

Education[link]

Secondary schools[link]

See List of schools in Gloucestershire.

Gloucestershire has mainly comprehensive schools with seven selective schools; two are in Stroud (Stroud High School for girls and Marling School for boys), one in Cheltenham (Pate's Grammar) and four in Gloucester (Sir Thomas Rich's and The Crypt for boys and The High School and Ribston Hall for girls). There are 42 state secondary schools, not including sixth form colleges, and 12 independent schools, including the renowned Cheltenham Ladies' College, Cheltenham College and Dean Close School. All but about two schools in each district have a sixth form, but the Forest of Dean only has two schools with sixth forms. All schools in South Gloucestershire have sixth forms.

Higher and further education[link]

Gloucestershire has one university, the University of Gloucestershire, one university college, the Royal Agricultural College, and four higher and further education colleges, Gloucestershire College, Cirencester College, Stroud College and the Royal Forest of Dean College. Each has campuses at multiple locations throughout the county.

Cities in Gloucestershire[link]

• Gloucester

Towns in Gloucestershire[link]

The towns in Gloucestershire are:

Towns in South Gloucestershire (historically part of Gloucestershire) are:

Town in Monmouthshire with suburbs in Gloucestershire:

• Chepstow

Antiquities[link]

The cathedral of Gloucester, the magnificent abbey church of Tewkesbury, and the church of Cirencester with its great Perpendicular porch, are described under their separate headings. Of the abbey of Hailes near Winchcombe, founded by Richard, Earl of Cornwall, in 1246, little more than the foundations are left, but these have been excavated and interesting fragments have been brought to light.

Parish Church of St. Mary, Fairford

Most of the old market towns have fine parish churches. At Deerhurst near Tewkesbury, and Bishop's Cleeve near Cheltenham, there are churches of special interest on account of the pre-Norman work they retain. The Perpendicular church at Lechlade is unusually perfect; and that at Fairford was built (c. 1500), according to tradition, to contain the remarkable series of stained-glass windows which are said to have been brought from the Netherlands. These are, however, adjudged to be of English workmanship, and are one of the finest series in the country.

Calcot Barn is an interesting relic of Kingswood Abbey. Thornbury Castle is a Tudor country house, the pretensions of which evoked the jealousy of Cardinal Wolsey against its builder, Edward Stafford, duke of Buckingham, who was beheaded in 1521. Near Cheltenham is the fine 15th-century mansion of Southam de la Bere, of timber and stone.^{[citation needed]} Memorials of the de la Bere family appear in the church at Cleeve. The mansion contains a tiled floor from Hailes Abbey. At Great Badminton is the mansion and vast domain of the Beauforts (formerly of the Botelers and others), on the south-eastern boundary of the county. At Owlpen is one of the most picturesque Tudor manor houses set in a densely-wooded valley.

There are several royal residences in Gloucestershire, including Highgrove House, Gatcombe Park, and (formerly) Nether Lypiatt Manor.

An annual "cheese-rolling" event takes place at Cooper's Hill, near Brockworth and the Cotswold Games occurred within the county.

Places of interest[link]

Key
	Abbey/Priory/Cathedral
	Accessible open space
	Amusement/Theme Park
	Castle
	Country Park
	English Heritage
	Forestry Commission
	Heritage railway
	Historic House
	Museum (free/not free)
	National Trust
	Theatre
	Zoo

Places of interest in Gloucestershire include:

• Badminton House, residence of the Dukes of Beaufort.
• Berkeley Castle, an example of a feudal stronghold.
• Beverston Castle
• Chavenage House
• Dean Forest Railway
• Dyrham Park
• Edward Jenner's House
• Gloucester Cathedral
• Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway
• Hailes Abbey
• Newark Park
• Owlpen Manor
• Snowshill Manor
• Sudeley Castle, burial place of Queen Catherine Parr, 6th wife and consort of King Henry VIII.
• Stanway House
• River Thames
• Rodmarton Manor
• Tewkesbury Abbey
• Tyndale Monument
• Wildfowl and Wetland Trust, Slimbridge
• Woodchester Mansion

Areas of countryside in Gloucestershire include:

• Forest of Dean
• Wye Valley

Scenic Railway Line:

• Gloucester to Newport Line

Media[link]

Gloucestershire's daily newspapers are The Citizen, which covers Gloucester, Stroud and the Forest of Dean, and the Gloucestershire Echo, which covers Cheltenham, Tewkesbury and the Cotswolds. The two daily papers, along with free weeklies The Forester, Stroud Life, The Gloucester News and The Cheltenham and Tewkesbury News, are all published by Northcliffe Media.^[7] The Stroud News & Journal is a weekly paid-for newspaper based in Stroud. It is published in a tabloid format by Newsquest. Newsquest also produces the weekly Wilts and Glos Standard newspaper, which covers the southern and eastern parts of the county.

Radio stations in Gloucestershire include BBC Radio Gloucestershire and Heart Gloucestershire, and Total Star Gloucestershire. There are also several community radio stations including Gloucester FM, Radio Winchcombe, Forest of Dean Radio, and North Cotswold Community Radio.

Gloucestershire in popular culture[link]

There are two well-known accounts of childhood in rural Gloucestershire in the early 20th century, Laurie Lee's Cider With Rosie and Winifred Foley's A Child in the Forest. Part of Mrs. Craik's novel John Halifax, Gentleman is set in Enderley, a thinly disguised Amberley, where she lived at the time of writing.^[8] Most of the book is set in Nortonbury, easily recognisable as Tewkesbury. The county has also been the setting for a number of high profile movies and TV series, including Die Another Day, Harry Potter and BBC TV series Butterflies.^[9]

Gloucestershire Animals[link]

The famous Gloucestershire Old Spot pig hails from Gloucestershire and likewise sheep have a right to roam in the Forest of Dean. The Forest of Dean and the Wye Valley also have Wild Boar.

See also[link]

England portal

• List of Lord Lieutenants of Gloucestershire
• List of High Sheriffs of Gloucestershire
• Custos Rotulorum of Gloucestershire - Keepers of the Rolls
• Gloucestershire (UK Parliament constituency) - Historical list of MPs for Gloucestershire constituency
• List of people from Gloucestershire
• Category:Grade I listed buildings in Gloucestershire
• Diocese of Gloucester
• Flag of Gloucestershire
• Gloucestershire County Cricket Club
• Gloucestershire Old Spots Pig
• Gloucestershire Regiment
• Royal Gloucestershire Hussars
• West Country dialects
• Cider

Notes[link]

1. ^ BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3684291.stm, 5 May 2004. Retrieved 8 April 2006.
2. ^ BBC – News Flood crisis grows as rivers rise
3. ^ Components may not sum to totals due to rounding
4. ^ includes hunting and forestry
5. ^ includes energy and construction
6. ^ includes financial intermediation services indirectly measured
7. ^ Gloucestershire Media Group's portfolio – Northcliffe Media subsidiary which publishes local papers in Gloucestershire
8. ^ British History Online
9. ^ 'Gloucestershire TV and Movie Locations' at Gloucestershire On Screen

Further reading[link]

Rudder, Samuel. (1779) A New History of Gloucestershire. Reprint: Nonsuch Publishing, 2006. ISBN 1-84588-023-4 (Free download of original here: A New History of Gloucestershire)

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Gloucestershire

• Gloucestershire County Council Local government web site
• Gloucestershire at the Open Directory Project

v t e Ceremonial county of Gloucestershire Unitary authorities South Gloucestershire Boroughs or districts Cheltenham Cotswold Forest of Dean Gloucester Stroud Tewkesbury Major settlements Berkeley Bradley Stoke Cheltenham Chipping Campden Chipping Sodbury Cinderford Cirencester Coleford Dursley Fairford Filton Gloucester Kingswood Lechlade Lydney Minchinhampton Mitcheldean Moreton-in-Marsh Nailsworth Newent Northleach Painswick Patchway Stonehouse Stow-on-the-Wold Stroud Tetbury Tewkesbury Thornbury Winchcombe Wotton-under-Edge Yate See also: List of civil parishes in Gloucestershire Rivers Bristol Avon Warwickshire Avon Bybrook Boyd Cam Chelt Churn Coln Evenlode Eye Bristol Frome Stroud Frome Hazel Brook Leach Little Avon Lyd Severn Swilgate Thames Trym Windrush Wye Topics History Museums

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Coordinates: 51°50′N 2°10′W / 51.833°N 2.167°W / 51.833; -2.167