LEONARD STANLEY
LEONARD STANLEY, which once had a market and a
considerable cloth industry, lies 2½ miles west of
Stroud on the south side of the Frome valley. The
parish is roughly triangular in shape and contains
824 a. (fn. 1) The ancient parish included also a detached
part west of Stinchcombe, comprising Lorridge
farm (213 a.), (fn. 2) the estate of the hospital of Lorridge
or Lorwing granted to Leonard Stanley Priory in
1225; (fn. 3) in 1882 and 1884 Lorridge farm was transferred to the parishes of Stinchcombe and Alkington,
and its history is reserved for another volume. In
1882 Eastington parish absorbed a detached part of
Leonard Stanley, (fn. 4) another piece of former priory
land, which included the mill at Millend. (fn. 5)
The north part of the parish lies along the
southern branch of the River Frome at c. 100 ft.; its
southern end climbs to the ridge of the Cotswolds at
650 ft. at Sandford's Knoll, named from the family
that held an estate in the parish for 250 years. (fn. 6) The
parish lies on the Lower Lias which is overlain at
the southern end by successive strata of the Middle
and Upper Lias; (fn. 7) deposits of gravel occur in the
north, and a gravel-pit to the north-west of the
village was awarded at inclosure in 1834. (fn. 8) Flints
found in the gravel are thought to be evidence of a
settlement in the Mesolithic period. (fn. 9) There are
small woods in the south, and at the west end of the
parish. There were open fields in the north of the
parish until 1834. (fn. 10) The Bitton brook (fn. 11) flows
northward to the Frome forming a shallow coomb in
the north part of the parish.
The priory of Leonard Stanley was founded
c. 1131, (fn. 12) and the village was usually known as
Monks' Stanley in the Middle Ages, (fn. 13) but later it
was named from the dedication of the priory,
Stanley St. Leonards or Leonard Stanley. The priory,
which from 1146 was a cell to Gloucester Abbey, was
built close to a Saxon chapel, which was included in
the precinct and survives as a barn, The large priory
church, which survives as the parish church, (fn. 14) was
built north-east of the chapel, with a cloister,
mentioned in 1544, (fn. 15) against the south wall of its
nave; of the cloister only the corbels which supported its roof on the west wall of the south transept
of the priory church remain. The priory house,
later completely rebuilt, (fn. 16) stood on the east side of
the precinct. A medieval tithe-barn survives in the
south-west corner of the precinct; it has a porch
extension on the east, and in the north wall a
blocked round-headed entrance, a blocked 14th-century cusped light, and another 14th-century light
with damaged tracery. The west side of the precinct
was occupied partly by the priory kitchen, a square
stone building with a louvred roof, and in 1787 a
house with stone-mullioned windows and an arched
doorway, possibly a post-medieval building, stood
west of the kitchen linked to the south-west corner
of the Saxon chapel by a small gateway to the
precinct; (fn. 17) both the kitchen and the house had been
demolished by 1834. (fn. 18)
The main village lay along the road called the
Street (fn. 19) running north from the priory to the road
from Frocester to King's Stanley, and the open
space at its southern end, extending eastwards into
the road to Stanley Marsh, was a focal point; two
small pieces of green survived there in 1967. A
church house was built adjoining the churchyard
c. 1502; (fn. 20) it later served as a poorhouse, (fn. 21) and was
apparently demolished in the early 19th century. (fn. 22)
The area was the scene of the markets and fairs, (fn. 23)
and the market-house which stood there was rebuilt
in the early 17th century; (fn. 24) the house served as a
private dwelling in 1806, (fn. 25) but was apparently
pulled down soon afterwards. Two inns, the 'White
Hart', mentioned from 1740, (fn. 26) and the 'Cross Keys',
mentioned from 1707, (fn. 27) overlooked the marketplace, standing respectively west of the Street and
north of the road to Stanley Marsh.
In 1640 eight houses of two to six bays and five
houses of two to four spaces were mentioned in the
village; (fn. 28) the use of the words bays and spaces
perhaps distinguished timber-framed from stonebuilt houses. Most of them probably stood along the
Street; eight houses there were mentioned in 1668, (fn. 29)
and the road was evidently built up along most of its
length in the late 17th century when the name
Townsend was applied to the house of the Holbrow
family opposite its northern end. (fn. 30) The village
suffered a serious fire in 1686 (fn. 31) which apparently
destroyed several houses in the Street; leave to
rebuild one on the west side was given in 1692. (fn. 32)
Tudor House on that side of the Street was apparently unaffected by the fire. The house was recorded
from 1392, (fn. 33) and the central part appears to have
been a cruck-framed building of three bays containing an open hall; one cruck blade and the foot of
another survive, and, in what was formerly the
external wall on the east, are two original windows
with diagonally-set and closely spaced wooden
mullions. A two-storied cross-wing at the north end
made the house L-shaped, and later a room and a
porch were added in the angle. At that period the
hall was made two-storied by the insertion of an
upper floor. The next addition was a wing of closestudded timber-framing with a jettied upper story,
projecting from the west or rear side of the original
block. It was probably in existence by 1559 when
the house, described as three rooms under a tiled
roof, had also a weaving-shop of two rooms under a
thatched roof. (fn. 34) On the east side another closestudded extension forms the two-gabled road
frontage of the house. In the late 16th or the 17th
century several walls of the house were faced in
stone and stone-mullioned windows with dripmoulds were inserted. The house was restored in
1958. (fn. 35) Chapel House to the north, a 17th-century
gabled house faced in rough-cast, has unusual
stone-mullioned windows with ogee-heads to the
lights, apparently added in the 18th century at the
same time as the porch with pediment and fluted
columns. Further south where the Street broadens
out to the old market-place are the 'White Hart', a
gabled 17th-century house of rubble, and another
17th-century house faced in rough-cast with a single
steep gable. On the east side of the Street there are
one 17th-century Cotswold-style house in rubble
partly faced in rough-cast and two 19th-century
houses. In the early 19th century several stone and
brick cottages were built on the east side of the road
running north-west from the market-place; other
houses were built on the opposite side of the road
in the mid 20th century. A council estate was built
on the north-west side of the Street in the late 1950s,
replacing a timber-framed house. (fn. 36)
To the east of the market-place a row of 17th-century Cotswold-style rubble cottages faces a
small green; two were rebuilt in brick in the 19th
century. Church Farm to the south-east bears the
date 1688 and the initials J.S., perhaps for John
Sandford, a younger son of John Sandford of the
Priory (d. 1684); (fn. 37) it is a gabled Cotswold-style
house with oval windows in the gables. Marsh
House at the bend of the road to Stanley Marsh is a
large stone house of the earlier 19th century with a
parapet and cornice and a porch with Doric columns.
To the north a group of stone and brick cottages
includes the former workhouse. (fn. 38) Stanley Marsh,
where there was at least one house in 1684, (fn. 39) is a
fairly large settlement of late-18th- or early-19th-century stone cottages. The Lamb Inn there had
opened by 1863. (fn. 40) The road running south from
Stanley Marsh has been built up in the mid 20th
century and another large development to the west
has almost linked it with King's Stanley.
Seven Waters, west of the village, took its name
from a series of ponds formed by the Bitton brook
and a tributary, extending from south of the priory
to north of the road to Frocester where the lowest of
the seven ponds drove a fulling-mill; (fn. 41) only two of
the ponds survived in 1967. The largest house at
Seven Waters, the Tannery south-west of the road
junction, was built by James Clutterbuck, a surgeon,
in 1770; (fn. 42) from the mid 19th century it was occupied by the owners of the adjoining tanning factory. (fn. 43)
It is a brick house with long and short stone quoins
and has dormers and sash windows with voussoirs;
an extension was made at the rear in the 19th
century. To the west is a brick house of c. 1700 later
extended and divided into cottages, and the opposite
side of the road is lined mainly with late 19th-century houses. Near the Downton turning an Lshaped house, comprising a timber-framed wing
and a stone wing, was demolished to make way for
new houses in the late 1950s. (fn. 44)
Stanley Downton, in the north of the parish and
reached by minor roads from Stanley Marsh and
from west of Seven Waters, was the site of a mill
from the 16th century or earlier. (fn. 45) There were seven
houses there in the early 18th century. (fn. 46) Apart
from a small 17th-century farm-house, (fn. 47) and the
Fleece Inn, which apparently dates from c. 1700 and
has a narrow brick front surmounted by a gable
with swept parapets, Downton consists of 19th-century brick buildings. Poplar Gate Lodge on the
road to Beard's Mill is an early-19th-century brick
house with Gothic windows and low flanking castellated extensions. At Beard's Mill are a large house
and cottages and the surviving buildings of a
fulling-mill which existed there from the 17th
century. (fn. 48)
Twenty-five inhabitants of Leonard Stanley were
recorded in 1086, (fn. 49) and nine assessed for tax in
1327. (fn. 50) The muster roll of 1542 gives 90 names for
Leonard Stanley, the highest number in the hundred. (fn. 51) The number of communicants was estimated at c. 260 in 1551, (fn. 52) and the parish was said
to contain 47 households in 1563. (fn. 53) Five new
cottages built on the waste of the manor in the first
40 years of the 17th century may indicate a growing
population, (fn. 54) and there were 86 families in 1650. (fn. 55)
There were said to be 400 people in 90 houses
c. 1710, (fn. 56) and 512 people c. 1775. (fn. 57) In 1801 the
population was 590; it fell to 538 in 1811, but over
the next twenty years it rose rapidly to 942 and c. 80
new houses were built. By 1841 the population had
fallen to 864 and it remained about the same until
1871 when there began a gradual fall to 652 in 1911.
There was then no rapid change until new building
took place in the 1950s, and the population rose
from 727 in 1951 to 1,131 in 1961. (fn. 58)
Leonard Stanley with its fairs and its weekly
market, for some time the only one in the hundred,
was formerly a centre of trade; (fn. 59) it was described as
a market-town in 1650. (fn. 60) It declined in importance
after the 17th century, and the beginning of the
decline was later associated with the fire of 1686. (fn. 61)
The village had an inn in 1418 and in 1640; (fn. 62) the
'George' was mentioned in 1674 (fn. 63) but not later, and
in 1751 there was the New Inn (fn. 64) in addition to the
two inns in the market-place mentioned above. The
Clothmakers' Society, meeting at the 'Cross Keys'
in 1783, (fn. 65) was probably the friendly society with
160 members recorded in 1803. (fn. 66)
Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn paid a brief visit to
Leonard Stanley in the summer of 1535. (fn. 67) Richard
Clutterbuck of Leonard Stanley (d. 1551) was the
ancestor of six branches of the family which during
the next three hundred years were prominent as
landowners and clothiers in King's Stanley,
Eastington, and Frampton. (fn. 68)