Coates 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 ...

situated in

Cotswold District Cotswold is a local government district in Gloucestershire, England. It is named after the wider Cotswolds region and range of hills. The council is based in the district's largest town of Cirencester. The district also includes the towns 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. It is around west of

Cirencester Cirencester ( , ; see #Pronunciation, below for more variations) is a market town and civil parish in the Cotswold District of Gloucestershire, England. Cirencester lies on the River Churn, a tributary of the River Thames. It is the List of ...

and close to Cirencester Park, part of the Bathurst Estate. It is the nearest village to the source of the river

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after th ...

Thames Head Thames Head is a group of seasonal springs that arise in the Cotswolds, in the county of Gloucestershire, England. Their location is in fields near the villages of Coates and Kemble,

, and it is close to the course of the Foss Way or

Fosse Way The Fosse Way was a Roman road built in Britain during the first and second centuries AD that linked Isca Dumnoniorum (Exeter) in the southwest and Lindum Colonia ( Lincoln) to the northeast, via Lindinis ( Ilchester), Aquae Sulis ( Bat ...

, the ancient

Roman road Roman roads ( ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Em ...

. The nearest railway station is Kemble. The village population taken at the 2021 census was 491. The parish church of St Matthew's (now part of the Thameshead

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 ...

) dates to the 13th century. The Grade II* listed building has a

Perpendicular In geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at right angles, i.e. at an angle of 90 degrees or π/2 radians. The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the '' perpendicular symbol'', � ...

tower, 13th-century

piscina A piscina is a shallow basin placed near the altar of a church, or else in the vestry or sacristy, used for washing the communion vessels. The sacrarium is the drain itself. Lutherans and Anglicans usually refer to the basin, calling it a pisci ...

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 9th and 10th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norma ...

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts " Roman" (or "regul ...

and a Norman doorway. From 1. From 1799 to 1847, the Vicar of Coates was Bryan Mackey, one of the first Black British Anglican clergymen. Bernard Vann, VC, spent much of his childhood in Coates rectory, where his mother was housekeeper to the Rev. T. C. Simpson, his uncle. He is commemorated in the church. The village was home to the Coates

Cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

Club that played in the Cotswold District League, until the club disbanded after the 2016 season. The Tunnel House Inn could be found just beyond the edge of the village towards Tarlton, but is now permanently closed. The

Royal Agricultural University The Royal Agricultural University (RAU), formerly the Royal Agricultural College, is a public university in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, England. Established in 1845, it was the first agricultural college in the English-speaking world. ...

's Rural Skills Centre was previously located on the eastern side of the village in the buildings that were previously Coates Farm, however this has since been relocated to Harnhill, 4 miles south-east of Cirencester.

References

* David Verey, ''Gloucestershire: the Cotswolds'', The Buildings of England edited by

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (195 ...

, 2nd ed. (1979) , pp. 188–190

External links

Thameshead Benfice Website - for St Matthews ChurchCoates Cricket Club WebsiteTunnel House Inn WebsiteRural Skills Centre of the Royal Agricultural College
{{authority control Villages in Gloucestershire Civil parishes in Gloucestershire