Little Washbourne is a village and former

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 authorit ...

, now in the parish 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 ...

, 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 Ri ...

district, in

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, east of

and west of Evesham. In 1931 the parish had a population of 27. St Mary's Church dates from the 12th century, and is a

Grade II* listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Ir ...

History

Little Washbourne was first mentioned in a copy of a document dated to 780, in the form ''Uassanburnan''. The name is from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

''wæsse'' (genitive ''wæssan''), meaning "swamp", and ''burna'', meaning "stream", and so means "stream with land subject to flooding". "Little" was added much later (first recorded in the 17th century), to distinguish the place from Great Washbourne. In 780 Offa, King of Mercia, gave land there to the monks of

Worcester Worcester may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England ** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament * Worcester Park, London, Engla ...

, and as a result the manor became a

detached part An enclave is a territory (or a small territory apart of a larger one) that is entirely surrounded by the territory of one other state or entity. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. ''Enclave'' is sometimes used improperly to deno ...

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see H ...

, separated from the rest of the county by Great Washbourne in Gloucestershire. It formed a hamlet of the Worcestershire parish of Overbury. In the 13th century the manor was held by a family who took the name Washbourne, from the place. In 1844 Little Washbourne was transferred to Gloucestershire under the

Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844 The Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844 (7 & 8 Vict. c. 61), which came into effect on 20 October 1844, was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom which eliminated many outliers or exclaves of counties in England and Wales for civil purposes. ...

. It became a

in 1866, but on 1 April 1935 the civil parish was abolished and merged into the parish of

.Vision of Britain website
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References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Gloucestershire Former civil parishes in Gloucestershire Dumbleton