Petty France is a

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...

within Hawkesbury

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 ...

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, Kingswood, Thornbury, Filton, Patchway and Bradley Stoke. The southern p ...

, England. It is on the A46, which runs from

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

, to

Nailsworth Nailsworth is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Stroud District in Gloucestershire, England, lying in one of the Stroud Valleys in the Cotswolds, on the A46 road, south of Stroud and about north-east of Bristol and Bat ...

and

Stroud Stroud is a market town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It is the main town in Stroud District. The town's population was 13,500 in 2021. Sited below the western escarpment of the Cotswold Hills, at the meeting point of the ...

, just south of another, slightly smaller hamlet,

Dunkirk Dunkirk ( ; ; ; Picard language, Picard: ''Dunkèke''; ; or ) is a major port city in the Departments of France, department of Nord (French department), Nord in northern France. It lies from the Belgium, Belgian border. It has the third-larg ...

Badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racket (sports equipment), racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net (device), net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per s ...

and Hawkesbury Upton are also nearby. The Manor House in Petty France was built in 1812 for

Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool (7 June 1770 – 4 December 1828) was a British Tories (British political party), Tory statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1812 to 1827. Before becoming Prime Minister ...

, prime minister from 1812 to 1827. The house has seen the likes of Lord Wellington, and has been in the ownership of the poet Wordsworth's family, Lord and Lady Apsley and the Duke of Beaufort; today it is a hotel.

Road accidents

In 2002, Petty France and Dunkirk were known as road accident hotspots. According to the council's accident database, the proportion of fatal and serious accidents was 46%, significantly higher than the average for South Gloucestershire as a whole, which was 12%. 13 accidents occurred between 1 January 1998 and 31 December 2001, of which two were fatal, four others were classified as serious, and seven were slight. As a result of this, the speed through the two hamlets was reduced to 40 MPH.

Cultural references

In her novel

Northanger Abbey ''Northanger Abbey'' ( ) is a coming-of-age novel and a satire of Gothic fiction, Gothic novels written by the English author Jane Austen. Although the title page is dated 1818 and the novel was published posthumously in 1817 with ''Persuasio ...

(written in 1803, but not published until 1817),

Jane Austen Jane Austen ( ; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for #List of works, her six novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment on the English landed gentry at the end of the 18th century ...

mentions Petty France as a dull two-hour rest stop on the road between Bath and the fictional abbey: "There was nothing to be done but to eat without being hungry, and to loiter about without anything to see."J. Austen,
Northanger Abbey
', ch. 20.

References

External links

Villages in South Gloucestershire District {{SouthGloucestershire-geo-stub