Coaley is a village in the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

county 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 ...

roughly 4 miles from the town of

Dursley Dursley is a market town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in southern Gloucestershire, England, almost equidistant from the cities of Bristol and Gloucester. It is under the northeast flank of Stinchcombe#Stinchcombe Hill, Stinchco ...

, and 5 miles from the town of

Stroud Stroud is a market town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It is the main town in Stroud District. The town's population was 13,500 in 2021. Below the western escarpment of the Cotswold Hills, at the meeting point of the Five ...

. The village drops from the edge of the Cotswold Hills, overlooked by Frocester Hill and

Coaley Peak Coaley Peak is a picnic site and viewpoint in the England, English county of Gloucestershire. Located about south-west of the town of Stroud, Gloucestershire, Stroud overlooking the village of Coaley, Coaley Peak offers of reclaimed farmland ( ...

picnic site, towards the

River Cam The River Cam () is the main river flowing through Cambridge in eastern England. After leaving Cambridge, it flows north and east before joining the River Great Ouse to the south of Ely, at Pope's Corner. The total distance from Cambridge to ...

Cam Calmodulin (CaM) (an abbreviation for calcium-modulated protein) is a multifunctional intermediate calcium-binding messenger protein expressed in all eukaryotic cells. It is an intracellular target of the secondary messenger Ca2+, and the bin ...

and

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

and the

Severn Estuary The Severn Estuary ( cy, Aber Hafren) is the estuary of the River Severn, flowing into the Bristol Channel between South West England and South Wales. Its high tidal range, approximately , means that it has been at the centre of discussions in t ...

beyond. It has a population of around 770. Coaley has many amenities, including a 300-year-old pub, the Old Fox (was The Fox and Hounds until November 2018 ), awarded the Cotswold Life Food & Drink Awards Pub of The Year 2022, the Coaley C of E Primary School, a church, a village hall, and a community shop, recently re-opened in a new building, with coffee shop facilities.

Cam and Dursley railway station Cam and Dursley railway station is a railway station serving the village of Cam and the town of Dursley in Gloucestershire, England. It is located on the main Bristol-Birmingham line, between Yate and Gloucester, at a site close to where Co ...

(near the former Coaley Junction station) was reopened in 1994 (the original closed in 1965) and is situated on the South-Western border of the village. Coaley used to have a football team, Coaley Rovers, who were also known as Coaley Crows. They competed in the

Stroud and District League The Stroud and District Football League is a football competition based in England. The league was established in 1902 and is affiliated to the Gloucestershire County FA. It has a total of six divisions with the highest, Division One, sitting at ...

. There is also a Coaley Cricket Club. Coaley also holds an annual produce show, which has been held since 1942 on the first Saturday in September. In 2003, Coaley was crowned

village of the year in a Calor-sponsored competition organised by

Rural Community Council, and went on to pick up a runner-up prize in the national competition, in recognition of local residents' efforts to develop community organisations and enterprises. Local legend has it that one of the original script writers of ''

The Archers ''The Archers'' is a BBC radio drama on BBC Radio 4, the corporation's main spoken-word channel. Broadcast since 1951, it was famously billed as "an everyday story of country folk" and is now promoted as "a contemporary drama in a rural settin ...

'', Geoffrey Webb, drank regularly in the (now closed) Swan Public House in the village, and his experiences helped inspire the long-running radio serial.

Governance

The village falls in 'Coaley and Uley'

electoral ward A ward is a local authority area, typically used for electoral purposes. In some countries, wards are usually named after neighbourhoods, thoroughfares, parishes, landmarks, geographical features and in some cases historical figures connected to t ...

. This ward starts in the north near the

M5 motorway The M5 is a motorway in England linking the Midlands with the South West England, South West. It runs from junction 8 of the M6 motorway, M6 at West Bromwich near Birmingham to Exeter in Devon. Heading south-west, the M5 runs east of West Brom ...

and stretches south to

Uley Uley is a village and civil parish in the county of Gloucestershire, England. The parish includes the hamlets of Elcombe and Shadwell and Bencombe, all to the south of the village of Uley, and the hamlet of Crawley to the north. The village i ...

. The total population of this ward taken at the 2011 census was 2,299.

References

External links

Coaley Parish Council

Coaley Primary School

Coaley Community Shop

The Old Fox at Coaley

Coaley Junction Action Committee (Railway Information)

Coaley Cricket Club

Coaley Produce Show

Coaley Parish Plan

Stroud Voices (Coaley filter) - oral history site
{{authority control Villages in Gloucestershire Stroud District Civil parishes in Gloucestershire