![Parish Church at Wick - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Parish_Church_at_Wick_-_geograph.org.uk_-_56555.jpg)
Wick is a village in
South Gloucestershire
South Gloucestershire is a unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire, South West England. Towns in the area include Yate, Chipping Sodbury, Thornbury, Filton, Patchway and Bradley Stoke, the latter three forming part ...
, England. It is the main settlement in the
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 ...
of Wick and Abson. The population of this civil parish taken at the
2011 census was 1,989.
Description
It is situated on the A420 between
Bristol
Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
and
Chippenham
Chippenham is a market town
A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village ...
, south of the
Cotswolds
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 ...
. The
River Boyd
The River Boyd is a river of some in length which rises near Dodington in South Gloucestershire, England. It is a tributary of the Bristol Avon, running in a southerly direction and joining near Bitton. The flow rate at Bitton is an average . ...
flows through the old village, with its watermeadows facing
St. Bartholomew
Bartholomew (Aramaic: ; grc, Βαρθολομαῖος, translit=Bartholomaîos; la, Bartholomaeus; arm, Բարթողիմէոս; cop, ⲃⲁⲣⲑⲟⲗⲟⲙⲉⲟⲥ; he, בר-תולמי, translit=bar-Tôlmay; ar, بَرثُولَماو ...
's Church, a grade II* listed building dating from 1850.
As well as the church, the village has several shops, the Rose & Crown and (now defunct) Carpenters Arms public houses, a village hall, sports ground, and Wick Primary School. Brockwell Park provides a green space for the village with a play area and a trim trail, as well as a Community Orchard planted in 2020.
Nearby Blue Lodge was once the home of ''
Black Beauty
''Black Beauty: His Grooms and Companions, the Autobiography of a Horse'' is an 1877 novel by English author Anna Sewell. It was composed in the last years of her life, during which she was bedridden and seriously ill.Merriam-Webster (1995). ...
'' author
Anna Sewell
Anna Sewell (; 30 March 1820 – 25 April 1878)''The Oxford guide to British women writers'' by Joanne Shattock. p. 385, Oxford University Press. (1993) was an English novelist. She is known as the author of the 1877 novel ''Black Beauty'', her ...
and
Tracy Park
Tracy Park is an estate near Wick, Bristol, Wick, South Gloucestershire, close to the boundary with Bath and North East Somerset and approximately from the World Heritage City of Bath, Somerset, Bath. Set in approximately of parkland, the hou ...
on the Bath Road (now a
golf
Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible.
Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...
club) was thought to be the inspiration for ''Black Beauty's'' Birtwick Park.
The picturesque Golden Valley is well known for walking, birding and
equestrian
The word equestrian is a reference to equestrianism, or horseback riding, derived from Latin ' and ', "horse".
Horseback riding (or Riding in British English)
Examples of this are:
* Equestrian sports
*Equestrian order, one of the upper classes i ...
activity. It was described by the poet
John Dennys
John Dennys (died 1609), a poet and fisherman, pioneered Angling poetry in England. His only work ''The Secrets of Angling'' was the earliest English poetical treatise on fishing. John Dennys may have been an acquaintance of Shakespeare.
Early ...
of Pucklechurch in his work of 1613 ''
The Secrets of Angling
''The Secrets of Angling'' was a book written by John Dennys. It was the earliest English poetical treatise on fishing, first published in 1613 in London. A didactic pastoral poem in 3 books, in the style of Virgil's Georgics. It was published ...
'', the earliest English poetical treatise on fishing:
And thou sweet Boyd that with thy watry sway
Dost wash the cliffes of Deington and of Weeke
And through their Rockes with crooked winding way
Thy mother Avon runnest soft to seek.
The authorship of the poem was a mystery for many years, having been published anonymously, and it was partly due to his mention of the rocks of Wick that he was finally identified. The Golden Valley is also a favorite destination for
hot air balloon
A hot air balloon is a lighter-than-air aircraft consisting of a bag, called an envelope, which contains heated air. Suspended beneath is a gondola or wicker basket (in some long-distance or high-altitude balloons, a capsule), which carries p ...
ists. Adjacent to Golden Valley is the historic
Bury Manor.
![Wick Quarry](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Wick_Quarry.JPG)
Wick Quarry, a limestone quarry previously owned by
CEMEX
CEMEX S.A.B. de C.V., known as Cemex, is a Mexican multinational building materials company headquartered in San Pedro, near Monterrey, Mexico. It manufactures and distributes cement, ready-mix concrete and aggregates in more than 50 countries. ...
, is no longer operational but is a haven for wildlife and also a birdwatching site. The site is now owned by MJ Church. Part of the site is managed by South Gloucestershire Council as the Golden Valley Nature Reserve.
[https://www.goldenvalley.org.uk/]
References
External links
{{Coord, 51, 27, 10, N, 2, 25, 25, W, scale:100000, display=title
Villages in South Gloucestershire District