CHERINGTON
The rural parish of Cherington lies four miles
NNE. of Tetbury. It covered an area of 2,267 a. (fn. 1)
until 1935 when a detached part of Avening parish
on the north boundary, comprising 1,157 a. and a
population in 1931 of 47, was added to it. (fn. 2) The added
area included the farms of Lowesmore and Aston,
the owners of which had long been involved in the
affairs of Cherington. (fn. 3) The account printed here
relates to the area, roughly triangular in shape, that
was included in the parish before 1935. Lowesmore
hedge, mentioned in 1730, (fn. 4) and the Avening stream
formed most of its northern boundary. The other
boundaries were marked by old field boundaries and
by roads, including part of an old Minchinhampton-
Malmesbury road on the west, and parts of the
Tetbury-Cirencester road and the old Tetbury-
Cheltenham road (fn. 5) on the south-east.
The parish lies on a plateau at a height of c. 500 ft.
and the land falls gently away to the south. The
plateau is composed of Forest Marble overlying
strata of the Great Oolite, which outcrop in the sides
of the valley called Cherington Bottom (fn. 6) in the northwest of the parish. The valley floor is overlaid with
fuller's earth, which throws out a number of springs. (fn. 7)
Stone was quarried in several places in the parish, (fn. 8)
in which the soil type, varying from Cotswold brash
to light loam, has a high lime content. Downland
predominates in the east of the parish while grassland and the better quality arable land are found in
the south and west. (fn. 9) Until inclosure in 1730 the land
lay mainly in open fields and in common pasture,
principally Cherington Down in the south. (fn. 10) No
woodland was recorded in 1086. (fn. 11) Nevertheless it
was complained in 1313 that men from Kingswood
Abbey had been felling trees. (fn. 12) After inclosure there
were several areas of woodland in the south-east of
the parish, (fn. 13) and in 1901 41 a. of plantation were
recorded. (fn. 14) Part of the manor-house park, which had
been created by 1730, (fn. 15) served as a deer-park in the
late 19th and early 20th centuries, (fn. 16) and the manor
was said to be well-timbered in 1934. (fn. 17) The sides of
the valley were densely wooded in 1973. The
Avening stream, the only natural watercourse in the
parish, runs westwards through the valley and opens
into Cherington pond which was dug in the mid
18th century, (fn. 18) presumably as part of a general
improvement of the manor estate c. 1740. (fn. 19) The lake
afforded facilities for boating and fishing; (fn. 20) in 1876
the activity of poachers was mentioned. (fn. 21)
The parish is traversed south of the village by an
ancient route recorded c. 1230 as the great track. (fn. 22)
The road, thought to have been used by the Romans,
formed a route between Cirencester and Chavenage
Green, from where it continued towards Bath, (fn. 23) and
it was called London way in the early 17th century. (fn. 24)
By the early 18th century it was in a state of disrepair. (fn. 25) Formerly a lane ran southwards from the
village to join London way at Three Cornered Bit,
where it apparently also met a route from Avening
by way of Westrip. Another road, branching from
London way at Three Cornered Bit and running
through Lowesmore to Sapperton, formed part of
the ancient Cotswold ridgeway (fn. 26) and was known as
the Warwickshire road in the 18th century. (fn. 27) In 1805
the southernmost section was closed, diverting the
route through the village. (fn. 28) The abandoned section
as far as the Cherington-Lowesmore road was called
Green Lane in 1816 (fn. 29) and disappeared before 1824. (fn. 30)
Several lesser roads converged in the north-west
part of the parish. Avening road, mentioned in
1730, (fn. 31) ascended the south side of the valley to meet
first an ancient route from Hampton Fields in
Minchinhampton, called Cherington way in 1584, (fn. 32)
and second Tetbury way, mentioned in 1711; (fn. 33) its
continuation towards Lowesmore was known as
Lowesmore Lane in 1816. (fn. 34) The Tetbury-Ciren
cester road, on the south-east boundary, was turnpiked in 1743. (fn. 35)
Cherington village, the principal settlement in the
parish, has remained small. It grew up around the
green on which the lesser roads converged and
then spread eastwards along the Lowesmore road as
far as the rectory. The church, from which the
village probably takes its name, (fn. 36) stands at the
western end of the village next to Cherington Park,
the manor-house. (fn. 37) The Yew Tree public house
overlooks the valley and Cherington pond, and is
similar in style to a coach-house of the earlier 18th
century at Cherington Park. The village has two
17th-century buildings, including on the north side
of the street the Tudor House which has been largely
rebuilt. Most of the buildings, the latest of which
date from the early 19th century, are of rubble in the
typical Cotswold style. The Drivers Charity Houses
were rebuilt in 1829, (fn. 38) and Pear Tree Row cottages
to the east are similar in date and style.
There was a settlement at Westrip, west of the
village between the Avening and Tetbury roads, by
the 13th century when several people surnamed of
Westrip were recorded in the parish. (fn. 39) The hamlet
was said to comprise 14 houses c. 1710, (fn. 40) and
cottages in Westrip Lane were mentioned in 1747, (fn. 41)
but in 1973 only a single farm-house remained. In
the late 19th century a cottage belonging to the
hamlet of Nag's Head stood in Cherington parish. (fn. 42)
The parish contains post-inclosure farmsteads at
Grove Farm and Trull. Grove Farm, which was
built south of London way at the centre of the
manor estate, (fn. 43) is a substantial square stone house;
the date 1741, which appears on a rain-water head,
is probably the year of completion. By the house,
which was alternatively called Montpelier in the
early 19th century, (fn. 44) are extensive barns and cattle
yards of the 18th and 19th centuries. Trull House
stands at the south-east edge of the parish near the
Tetbury-Cirencester road; (fn. 45) its outlying cottages,
Grove Cottages and Evergreen Cottages, date from
the mid 19th century.
Twenty-three male inhabitants of Cherington
were recorded in 1086; (fn. 46) the same number was
assessed for tax in 1327. (fn. 47) Thirty-three persons were
assessed in 1381. (fn. 48) The number of communicants
was said to be c. 70 in 1551 (fn. 49) and the number of
households in the parish in 1563 was reckoned at
21. (fn. 50) In the next century the population grew: the
estimated number of families in 1650 was 30 (fn. 51)
and there were said to be 120 people in 30 houses c.
1710. (fn. 52) The estimated population in the mid 18th
century was slightly lower at 110, (fn. 53) but by the 1770s
it had risen to 158. (fn. 54) In 1801 the population was 173
which suggests a considerable growth in the later
18th century. From 167 in 1811 it rose rapidly to a
peak of 251 in 1831. It remained a little below that
figure in the middle part of the century but later fell
to 181 by 1901. It rose again to 210 by 1911 but once
more fell back to 184 in 1931. The enlargement of
the parish in 1935 increased the population which in
1951 was 222, but over the area of the new parish
that was a drop from 247 in 1921. The total fell
further to 184 by 1961. (fn. 55)
Of the two victuallers licensed in the parish in
1755, (fn. 56) one presumably had an inn in the village
itself, although no early record of one there has been
found. An unnamed inn was recorded in the parish
in 1891 and 1903, (fn. 57) but later the village was without
an inn until the Yew Tree opened in the mid 20th
century. (fn. 58) Trouble House inn, on the TetburyCirencester turnpike at the south corner of the
parish, (fn. 59) was built by a carpenter, John Reeve,
shortly before 1757. (fn. 60) The inn, for which the
alternative name of the Waggon and Horses was
used in the early 19th century, (fn. 61) was bought in 1844
by John Leversage George (fn. 62) who apparently rebuilt
it. (fn. 63) In 1843 a friendly society met there. (fn. 64) A wooden
reading room was built in the village by Gertrude
George in 1934; (fn. 65) it became the parish hall in 1954 (fn. 66)
and remained in use in 1973.
In the 19th century the George family, which had
bought up most of the estates, was the chief influence
in the parish. The drinking-fountain on the village
green was provided by Elizabeth Mary George in
1875 when Cherington Park and Westrip Farm were
supplied with water pumped from a spring in
Cherington Bottom. The scheme was designed and
installed by John H. Taunton and the equipment
supplied by George Waller & Co. of the Phoenix
ironworks, Stroud. (fn. 67)
In November 1830 several of the rioters who had
been destroying agricultural machinery in the
neighbourhood of Tetbury were taken into custody
at the Trouble House inn. (fn. 68)
The pamphleteer Joseph Trapp (1679-1747), who
held the first endowed chair of poetry in the
University of Oxford between 1708 and 1714, was
born in Cherington where his father was rector. (fn. 69)