Withington is a Cotswold 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 authorit ...

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, about southeast of Cheltenham and north of Cirencester. The

River Coln The River Coln is a river in Gloucestershire, England. It rises to the north of Brockhampton, a village to the east of Cheltenham, and flows in a south/south-easterly direction through the Cotswold Hills via Andoversford, Withington, Fosseb ...

runs through the village. The parish includes the hamlets of Hilcot, Foxcote and Cassey Compton. The parish population taken at the 2011 census was 532. The site of a

Roman villa A Roman villa was typically a farmhouse or country house built in the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, sometimes reaching extravagant proportions. Typology and distribution Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) distinguished two kinds of villas n ...

lies to the south of the village. Remains of the villa were rediscovered in 1811 by Samuel Lysons, and investigations by the ''

Time Team ''Time Team'' is a British television programme that originally aired on Channel 4 from 16 January 1994 to 7 September 2014. It returned online in 2022 for two episodes released on YouTube. Created by television producer Tim ...

'' television programme for an episode first broadcast in 2006 found further Romano-British buildings east of the villa, towards the river. The origin of the name is unclear but it is found in records as early as 737 AD (''Wudiandun'', which would mean the hill of Wudia: Wudia may be a real settler or the legendary Germanic hero Witege). The other English places called Withington may have different origins. In his 1955 work, H. P. R. Finberg argued for continuity between Anglo-Saxon Withington and an earlier Roman settlement. During Saxon times there was an important monastery at Withington. The

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...

of St Michael and All Angels dates from the 12th century and is 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 ...

. The church was altered in the 15th century when the

Perpendicular In elementary geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at a right angle (90 degrees or π/2 radians). The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the ''perpendicular symbol'', ⟂. It ca ...

clerestory and higher tower were added, and has been described as "a typical example of an important Cotswold church". From 1891 to 1961, Withington had a

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prep ...

on the

Midland and South Western Junction Railway The Midland and South Western Junction Railway (M&SWJR) was an independent railway built to form a north–south link between the Midland Railway and the London and South Western Railway in England, allowing the Midland and other companies' tr ...

which ran between

Cirencester Cirencester (, ; see below for more variations) is a market town in Gloucestershire, England, west of London. Cirencester lies on the River Churn, a tributary of the River Thames, and is the largest town in the Cotswolds. It is the home of ...

and Cheltenham. The Mill Inn, now the only

public house 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 wa ...

in Withington, is credited locally with creating the popular "chicken in a basket" fried chicken and chips meal in the 1960s. The

2000 Trees 2000trees festival is an independent music festival held from Wednesday to Sunday on the second week of July at Upcote Farm, Withington, near Cheltenham in Gloucestershire. It offers a diverse selection of more than 120 acts across five stages ...

music festival is held annually at Upcote Farm, near the village. From April to May 2021, it was filmed as the fictional village of Cotson for the

folk horror Folk horror is a subgenre of horror film that uses elements of folklore to invoke fear and foreboding. Typical elements include a rural setting, isolation, and themes of superstition, folk religion, paganism, sacrifice and the dark aspects of natu ...

film ''

Men A man is an adult male human. Prior to adulthood, a male human is referred to as a boy (a male child or adolescent). Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chro ...

'', released in 2022 and directed by

Alex Garland Alexander Medawar Garland (born 26 May 1970) is an English writer and filmmaker. He rose to prominence as a novelist in the late 1990s with his novel '' The Beach'', which led some critics to call Garland a key voice of Generation X. He subsequ ...

References

External links

Withington Parish Council

at GenUKI
Victoria County History
Villages in Gloucestershire Cotswold District Civil parishes in Gloucestershire {{Gloucestershire-geo-stub