Alderton is a 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the

Tewkesbury Tewkesbury ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the north of Gloucestershire, England. The town grew following the construction of Tewkesbury Abbey in the twelfth century and played a significant role in the Wars of the Roses. It stands at ...

district of

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( , ; abbreviated Glos.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Herefordshire to the north-west, Worcestershire to the north, Warwickshire to the north-east, Oxfordshire ...

, England. The village is about north of

Cheltenham Cheltenham () is a historic spa town and borough adjacent to the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort following the discovery of mineral springs in 1716, and claims to be the mo ...

, east of

, south of

Evesham Evesham () is a market town and Civil parishes in England, parish in the Wychavon district of Worcestershire, in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands region of England. It is located roughly equidistant between Worcester, England, Worceste ...

and west of

Stow-on-the-Wold Stow-on-the-Wold is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Gloucestershire, England, on top of an 800-foot (244 m) hill at the junction of main roads through the Cotswolds, including the Fosse Way (A429), which is of Roman ...

. The main roads are the B4077 (Stow Road) and the A46. The parish has 1,170 residents.

Church and chapel

The

Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ...

of St Margaret of Antioch may originate from the

Anglo-Saxon era The territory today known as England became inhabited more than 800,000 years ago, as the discovery of stone tools and footprints at Happisburgh in Norfolk have indicated.; "Earliest footprints outside Africa discovered in Norfolk" (2014). BB ...

. The current building is mostly 14th century and was restored in 1890–92. St Margaret's

ecclesiastical parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

forms part of the Alderton

benefice A benefice () or living is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The Roman Empire used the Latin term as a benefit to an individual from the Empire for services rendered. Its use was adopted by ...

that incorporates the nearby villages of

Dumbleton Dumbleton is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Tewkesbury, Tewkesbury district, in the county of Gloucestershire, England. The village is roughly 20 miles from the city of Gloucester. The village is known to have existed in the time ...

, Little Washbourne and

Great Washbourne Great Washbourne is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Dumbleton, in the Tewkesbury district, in Gloucestershire, England, east of Tewkesbury and west of Evesham. In 1931 the parish had a population of 65. History Washb ...

. The benefice is administered from St Peter's church,

Winchcombe Winchcombe () is a market town and civil parish in the Borough of Tewkesbury in the county of Gloucestershire, England, situated northeast of Cheltenham. The population was recorded as 4,538 in the 2011 United Kingdom census, 2011 census and ...

. Alderton

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

chapel was built in 1899. It is now a private house.

Neighbourhoods

Alderton Fields

Alderton parish includes the satellite settlement of Alderton Fields, which is conjoined with Gretton Fields, Gretton. The distinctiveness of Alderton Fields, as a separate entity to Gretton Fields, was the subject of controversy when in the early 2000s, a road sign declared the whole area to be named Gretton Fields. The sign has since been moved to the Gretton parish boundary, and a new sign for Alderton Fields erected.

Oak Hill

The name of the

hill A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. It often has a distinct summit, and is usually applied to peaks which are above elevation compared to the relative landmass, though not as prominent as Mountain, mountains. Hills ...

between Alderton and

is the subject of local rivalry. There are three peaks to the hill, which are distinctively and separately named Dumbleton Hill, Alderton Hill and Oak Hill on

Ordnance Survey The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see Artillery, ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of ...

maps. To avoid controversy, the local primary school - which has two sites, one each in Alderton and Dumbleton - took the name Oak Hill. However, local residents will use the three names Oak Hill, Dumbleton Hill and Alderton Hill interchangeably to refer to the same hill, rather than the individual peaks.

Facilities

The village has the Gardners Arms

pub A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the late 17th century, to differentiate private ho ...

, a local garage and petrol station, and a

village shop A general merchant store (also known as general merchandise store, general dealer, village shop, or country store) is a rural or small-town store that carries a general line of merchandise. It carries a broad selection of merchandise, someti ...

that includes a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

. There is also the

Junior Junior or Juniors may refer to: Aircraft * Ekolot JK-05L Junior, a Polish ultralight aircraft * PZL-112 Junior, a Polish training aircraft * SZD-51 Junior, a Polish-made training and club glider Arts and entertainment Characters * Bowser Jr., ...

campus of Oak Hill Primary School - the

Infant In common terminology, a baby is the very young offspring of adult human beings, while infant (from the Latin word ''infans'', meaning 'baby' or 'child') is a formal or specialised synonym. The terms may also be used to refer to juveniles of ...

campus being in nearby Dumbleton. There is a number of pubs in the outlying areas around the village, including the Hobnails Inn at Little Washbourne. A

milkman Milk delivery is a Delivery (commerce), delivery service dedicated to supplying milk, typically in milk bottle, bottles or cartons, to customers' homes. This service is performed by a milkman, milkwoman, or milk deliverer. (In contrast, a Cowman ...

continues to provide doorstep delivery of dairy and bakery goods on certain days of the week - including milk sourced locally from dairy farms in the parish (although

pasteurisation In food processing, pasteurization ( also pasteurisation) is a process of food preservation in which packaged foods (e.g., milk and fruit juices) are treated with mild heat, usually to less than , to eliminate pathogens and extend shelf life ...

occurs at th
Cotteswold Dairy
plant in

). Most of the residents are either retired or commute to jobs in nearby

. A small number of people work in farming: there is a large dairy farm in the parish, plus sheep and wheat farming. Others work in tourism: there are several

bed and breakfast A bed and breakfast (typically shortened to B&B or BnB) is a small lodging establishment that offers overnight accommodation and breakfast. In addition, a B&B sometimes has the hosts living in the house. ''Bed and breakfast'' is also used to ...

guest houses, and a number of houses available as holiday lets. The Winchcomb
Camping and Caravanning Club
has a large campsite on the B4077 near Gretton. There is a free public

WiFi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...

hotspot provided from nearb
Frampton Cottages

ADSL Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over Copper wire, copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem ...

broadband In telecommunications, broadband or high speed is the wide-bandwidth (signal processing), bandwidth data transmission that exploits signals at a wide spread of frequencies or several different simultaneous frequencies, and is used in fast Inter ...

is available throughout the parish. In December 2006 a book documenting life in the village, along with some of its history, was published. The book was featured in the April 2007 edition of '' Country Life''.

Architecture and environment

Lying on the edge of both the Cotswolds and the Vale of Evesham, the village incorporates both

Cotswold stone The Cotswolds ( ) is a region of central South West England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper River Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and the Vale of Evesham. The area is defined by the bedroc ...

and

red brick A brick is a type of construction material used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a unit primarily composed of clay. But is now also used informally to denote building un ...

architecture, in addition to

wattle and daub Wattle and daub is a composite material, composite building method in which a woven lattice of wooden strips called "wattle (construction), wattle" is "daubed" with a sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, and ...

half-timbered Timber framing () and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy Beam (structure), timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and Woodworking joints, joined timbers with joints secure ...

thatched Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge ('' Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...

buildings, plus more modern houses and

bungalow A bungalow is a small house or cottage that is typically single or one and a half storey, if a smaller upper storey exists it is frequently set in the roof and Roof window, windows that come out from the roof, and may be surrounded by wide ve ...

s with Cotswold stone cladding. There are also a small number of

council house A council house, corporation house or council flat is a form of British Public housing in the United Kingdom, public housing built by Local government in the United Kingdom, local authorities. A council estate is a building complex containing ...

s with white pebbledash. Several houses in the outlying areas of the parish are built in a Victorian style using local red brick manufactured from a now-disused clay mine on the top of the nearby Oak Hill (also called Dumbleton Hill or Alderton Hill); these were originally constructed as farmworkers' cottages for the Dumbleton Hall estate ( Dumbleton Hall itself is now a hotel). A footpath system connects the village over the wooded Oak Hill to the nearby village of Dumbleton. These footpaths are known locally as "The Dungeons" due to the deep channel that they cut into the hillside and the darkness of overhanging trees. Oak Hill itself remains a managed estate, with organised game bird shooting and rearing of deer for sale to other game estates. A number of gamekeepers ensure public safety by directing ramblers to keep to marked footpaths.

References

Sources

* *

External links

* {{authority control Villages in Gloucestershire Civil parishes in Gloucestershire Borough of Tewkesbury