Alderton is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

in the

Tewkesbury Tewkesbury ( ) is a medieval market town and civil parish in the north of Gloucestershire, England. The town has significant history in the Wars of the Roses and grew since the building of Tewkesbury Abbey. It stands at the confluence of the Riv ...

district of

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( 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 Gl ...

, England. The village is about north of

Cheltenham Cheltenham (), also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a spa town and borough on the edge of the Cotswolds in the county of Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort, following the discovery of mineral s ...

, east of

, south of

Evesham Evesham () is a market town and parish in the Wychavon district of Worcestershire, in the West Midlands region of England. It is located roughly equidistant between Worcester, Cheltenham and Stratford-upon-Avon. It lies within the Vale of Evesha ...

and west of

Stow-on-the-Wold Stow-on-the-Wold is a market town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England, on top of an 800-foot (244 m) hill at the junction of main roads through the Cotswolds, including the Fosse Way (A429), which is of Roman origin. The town was found ...

. The main roads are the B4077 (Stow Road) and the A46. The parish has 1,170 residents.

Church and chapel

The

Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ca ...

St Margaret of Antioch Margaret, known as Margaret of Antioch in the West, and as Saint Marina the Great Martyr ( grc-gre, Ἁγία Μαρίνα) in the East, is celebrated as a saint on 20 July in the Western Rite Orthodoxy, Roman Catholic Church and Anglicanism, o ...

may originate from the Anglo-Saxon era. The current building is mostly 14th century and was restored in 1890–92. St Margaret's

ecclesiastical parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish priest ...

forms part of the Alderton

benefice A benefice () or living is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The Roman Empire used the Latin term as a benefit to an individual from the Empire for services rendered. Its use was adopted by ...

that incorporates the nearby villages of

Dumbleton Dumbleton is a village and civil parish in the English county of Gloucestershire. The village is roughly 20 miles from the city of Gloucester. The village is known to have existed in the time of Æthelred I who granted land to Abingdon Abbey, a ...

Little Washbourne Little Washbourne is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Dumbleton, in the Tewkesbury district, in Gloucestershire, England, east of Tewkesbury and west of Evesham. In 1931 the parish had a population of 27. St Mary's Chu ...

and

Great Washbourne Great Washbourne is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Dumbleton, in the Tewkesbury district, in Gloucestershire, England, east of Tewkesbury and west of Evesham. In 1931 the parish had a population of 65. History Washbou ...

. The benefice is administered from St Peter's church,

Winchcombe Winchcombe () is a market town and civil parish in the Borough of Tewkesbury in the county of Gloucestershire, England, it is 6 miles north-east of Cheltenham. The population was recorded as 4,538 in the 2011 census and estimated at 5,347 in ...

. Alderton

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...

chapel was built in 1899. It is now a private house.

Neighbourhoods

Alderton Fields

Alderton parish includes the satellite settlement of Alderton Fields, which is conjoined with Gretton Fields, Gretton. The distinctiveness of Alderton Fields, as a separate entity to Gretton Fields, was the subject of controversy when in the early 2000s, a road sign declared the whole area to be named Gretton Fields. The sign has since been moved to the Gretton parish boundary, and a new sign for Alderton Fields erected.

Oak Hill

The name of the

hill A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. It often has a distinct Summit (topography), summit. Terminology The distinction between a hill and a mountain is unclear and largely subjective, but a hill is universally con ...

between Alderton and

is the subject of local rivalry. There are three peaks to the hill, which are distinctively and separately named Dumbleton Hill, Alderton Hill and Oak Hill on

Ordnance Survey , nativename_a = , nativename_r = , logo = Ordnance Survey 2015 Logo.svg , logo_width = 240px , logo_caption = , seal = , seal_width = , seal_caption = , picture = , picture_width = , picture_caption = , formed = , preceding1 = , di ...

maps. To avoid controversy, the local primary school - which has two sites, one each in Alderton and Dumbleton - took the name Oak Hill. However, local residents will use the three names Oak Hill, Dumbleton Hill and Alderton Hill interchangeably to refer to the same hill, rather than the individual peaks.

Facilities

The village has the Gardners Arms

pub A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

, a local garage and petrol station, and a village shop that includes a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

. There is also the

Junior Junior or Juniors may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * ''Junior'' (Junior Mance album), 1959 * ''Junior'' (Röyksopp album), 2009 * ''Junior'' (Kaki King album), 2010 * ''Junior'' (LaFontaines album), 2019 Films * ''Junior'' (1994 ...

campus of

Oak Hill Primary School An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...

- the

Infant An infant or baby is the very young offspring of human beings. ''Infant'' (from the Latin word ''infans'', meaning 'unable to speak' or 'speechless') is a formal or specialised synonym for the common term ''baby''. The terms may also be used to ...

campus being in nearby Dumbleton. There is a number of pubs in the outlying areas around the village, including the Hobnails Inn at Little Washbourne. A

milkman Milk delivery is a delivery service dedicated to supplying milk. This service typically delivers milk in bottles or cartons directly to customers' homes. This service is performed by a milkman, milkwoman, or milk deliverer. (In contrast, a cow ...

continues to provide doorstep delivery of dairy and bakery goods on certain days of the week - including milk sourced locally from dairy farms in the parish (although

pasteurisation Pasteurization or pasteurisation is a process of food preservation in which packaged and non-packaged foods (such as milk and fruit juices) are treated with mild heat, usually to less than , to eliminate pathogens and extend shelf life. Th ...

occurs at th
Cotteswold Dairy
plant in

). Most of the residents are either retired or commute to jobs in nearby

. A small number of people work in farming: there is a large dairy farm in the parish, plus sheep and wheat farming. Others work in tourism: there are several

bed and breakfast Bed and breakfast (typically shortened to B&B or BnB) is a small lodging establishment that offers overnight accommodation and breakfast. Bed and breakfasts are often private family homes and typically have between four and eleven rooms, wit ...

guest houses, and a number of houses available as holiday lets. The Winchcomb
Camping and Caravanning Club
has a large campsite on the B4077 near Gretton. There is a free public

WiFi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio waves ...

hotspot provided from nearb
Frampton Cottages

ADSL Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. ...

broadband In telecommunications, broadband is wide bandwidth data transmission which transports multiple signals at a wide range of frequencies and Internet traffic types, that enables messages to be sent simultaneously, used in fast internet connections. ...

is available throughout the parish. In December 2006 a book documenting life in the village, along with some of its history, was published. The book was featured in the April 2007 edition of '' Country Life''.

Architecture and environment

Lying on the edge of both the Cotswolds and the Vale of Evesham, the village incorporates both

Cotswold stone The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale. The area is defined by the bedrock of Jur ...

and

red brick A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...

architecture, in addition to

wattle and daub Wattle and daub is a composite building method used for making walls and buildings, in which a woven lattice of wooden strips called wattle is daubed with a sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, animal dung a ...

half-timbered Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden ...

thatched Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (''Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...

buildings, plus more modern houses and

bungalow A bungalow is a small house or cottage that is either single-story or has a second story built into a sloping roof (usually with dormer windows), and may be surrounded by wide verandas. The first house in England that was classified as a b ...

s with Cotswold stone cladding. There are also a small number of

council house A council house is a form of British public housing built by local authorities. A council estate is a building complex containing a number of council houses and other amenities like schools and shops. Construction took place mainly from 1919 ...

s with white pebbledash. Several houses in the outlying areas of the parish are built in a Victorian style using local red brick manufactured from a now-disused clay mine on the top of the nearby Oak Hill (also called Dumbleton Hill or Alderton Hill); these were originally constructed as farmworkers' cottages for the Dumbleton Hall estate ( Dumbleton Hall itself is now a hotel). A footpath system connects the village over the wooded Oak Hill to the nearby village of Dumbleton. These footpaths are known locally as "The Dungeons" due to the deep channel that they cut into the hillside and the darkness of overhanging trees. Oak Hill itself remains a managed estate, with organised game bird shooting and rearing of deer for sale to other game estates. A number of gamekeepers ensure public safety by directing ramblers to keep to marked footpaths.

References

Sources

* *

External links

* {{authority control Villages in Gloucestershire Civil parishes in Gloucestershire Borough of Tewkesbury