Lower Lemington is a small 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 Batsford, in the

Cotswold 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 Jura ...

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-east of

Moreton-in-Marsh Moreton-in-Marsh is a market town in the Evenlode Valley, within the Cotswolds district and Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in Gloucestershire, England. The town stands at the crossroads of the Fosse Way Roman road (now the A429) and the ...

. Lower Lemington lies east of the Fosse Way, and west of a small stream which may have been called the Leam and may have given its name to the place. There was a settlement here in Saxon times, and the place was recorded in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

of 1086 as ''Lemingtune'', when it was in the possession of

Tewkesbury Abbey The Abbey Church of St Mary the Virgin, Tewkesbury–commonly known as Tewkesbury Abbey–is located in the English county of Gloucestershire. A former Benedictine monastery, it is now a parish church. Considered one of the finest examples of No ...

. The village continued to be known as Lemington until the 16th century. A distinction was then made between Lower Lemington and Upper Lemington: the two places were effectively a single village but with different manorial holdings and land ownership. Lower Lemington, held by Tewkesbury Abbey, was a separate manor and parish. Upper Lemington, about 300 metres to the east, was a manor held by

Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the Unite ...

and was included in the parish of Todenham. By the 20th century the name Upper Lemington had fallen out of use. The church of St Leonard was built in the 12th century. It is now a

Grade I 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 Irel ...

. Lower Lemington became a

in 1866. By 1931 the population of the parish was only 50. On 1 April 1935 the civil parish was abolished and merged into the civil parish of Batsford.

References

External links

*{{PastScape , num=332850 , desc=Upper and Lower Lemington Villages in Gloucestershire Cotswold District Former civil parishes in Gloucestershire