Bledington

 ( Villages In Gloucestershire ) 

In March 1553, the manor was acquired from the Crown for £897.13s.d (25 times its rental income) as part of an investment package by Thomas Leigh, a wealthy London merchant.Letters patent granting Thomas Leigh the manors of Castelthorpe and Bladington, etc., 11 March 1553. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Collection DR18/1/1405 At one stage the Leigh family owned the manors of Adlestrop, Maugersbury and Longborough, as well as their originating village of Stoneleigh. Before the sale, a detailed survey of the manor was undertaken which reveals that there was pasturage for 870 sheep and 124 oxen. Arable land was being used for wheat, barley and Legume together with some hemp for spinning.

By 1600, Leigh's descendants had begun to sell parts of the estate, principally to its tenants, but these freeholds did not represent contiguous areas of land. A 1710 will reveals that one freeholder had 250 arable strips distributed in 207 locations. The manorial common land was divided into parts, mostly held by Yeoman whose ancestors had been Copyholder in the 16th century, but was still used as common pasture.

In 1770 six open fields were Enclosure, a total of 1,343 acres, with sixteen landowners receiving allotments. Although there was a certain amount of exchanging of land after enclosure, on the whole, the lands belonging to each farm remained scattered. At a second enclosure in 1831 an area of 179 acres was divided between nine proprietors.Gloucestershire Records Office. Q/RI 26 In the 19th century, only Bledington Ground, and Village Farm remained large farms. The arable land produced wheat, oats, and barley,"Acreage Returns, 1801", Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society. lxvii: 175 and by the late 19th century turnips and cider apples were also being grown. ^{and earlier edns.} By the mid-20th century, this industry had stopped owing to the cost of labour and lack of facilities for making cider locally, but the orchards were still a prominent feature of the landscape.

A mill at Bledington was recorded as part of Winchcombe Abbey's estate in the Domesday Book. There was a miller in Bledington up to 1935.

The chancel, the nave arcade of three bays, and the south porch were built in the 13th century, and some new windows were added in the 14th century. Subsequently, a three-stage tower with an external was erected: the west wall of the nave serves as the base of the west wall of the tower and arches within the nave support the other walls of the tower.

The main rebuilding in the late 15th century included the raising of the nave roof, the insertion of a clerestory and parapets, and the refenestration of the nave and aisle. Most of the new windows were square-headed, with Perpendicular tracery, and five have canopied image brackets in each . A recess with a three-light window was built leading from the south-west corner of the chancel into an archway to the south aisle. The 15th-century south doorway, with moulded arch and head stops, retains part of its early door. In 1548 Somerset, the Lord Protector, acting on behalf of the boy king Edward VI, ordered that all imagery should be removed from churches, and by 1650 St Leonards had lost its rood screen and window statues. The hidden remains of the earlier wall decorations are now partially visible, including a stretch of masonry pattern enriched with rosettes and heart-shaped petals dating from the 14th century on the west wall of the chancel and a late medieval figure, in black outline, of a crowned female saint with long hair on the east wall of the nave.

The eight windows of the north wall of the nave and the recessed window in the south wall of the chancel were filled with contemporary painted glass. The glass survives, in some cases as fragments pieced together, but in others as nearly complete panels. It has been suggested that it was made by John Prudde of Westminster, glazier of the similar windows in the Beauchamp chapel in Warwick. Some of the inscriptions and names of donors can still be seen, one dated 1470.

The building was in a very poor state by the mid 19th century. It was restored in 1881 by J. E. K. Cutts and again by F. E. Howard c.1923. The pews were replaced in 1904, but some 15th-century bench ends with decorative blind tracery were retained. The tub-shaped font is 12th-century, the communion rails and altar table are 17th-century, and beside the 20th-century pulpit is an ancient wrought-iron hourglass stand. There are five 17th-century bells and a sixth dated 1811. One bell cast in 1639 bears the inscription We are the bells of Bledington and Charles is our King.

The ecclesiastical parish includes both Bledington and the hamlet of Foscot in Oxfordshire and forms part of the Evenlode Vale benefice of the Anglican Church. The patronage remains with the Dean and Chapter of Christ Church.

Manor Farm, possibly built on the site of a rest-house used by the monks of Winchcombe, has a 17th-century to early 18th-century T-shaped early core but was considerably enlarged c. 1900 by Guy Dawber and by more recent extensions. It is built of coursed squared and dressed limestone with a limestone slate roof and ashlar stacks. As with other major houses in the area, it has two stories and an attic lit by dormer windows. The first floor has chamfered stone-mullioned casements with stopped hoods and the ground floor has metal casements to ground floor, all with leaded panes. The original central doorway, door and door surround has been repositioned in the early century extension and comprises a studded plank door with decorative hinges within a roll-moulded Tudor-arched surround with raised, carved spandrels, and thin pilasters to either side supporting rectangular pediment.

Banks Farm is another classic Cotswolds stone farmhouse with elements dating back to the 17th century. It has two stone plaques on the front bearing witness to major rebuilding, in 1736 and 1784. These 18th-century extensions feature finely dressed limestone, a stone slate roof and ashlar stacks. Home Farm, across the Green, is also partly 17th-century. It is of two stories and attics, built of rubble with a Cotswold stone roof, and has mullions and dormers.

Five Bells Cottages, opposite the church, is said to have been an inn, at one time called the Five Tuns. It is mainly from 18th-century, but was extensively repaired in the 20th century.

There are other 18th-century buildings, including Beckley House adjacent to Manor Farm and Little Manor facing the Green, both of which have a symmetrical ashlar front, and Gilberts Farmhouse, also on the Green, which was originally two semidetached houses. The Old Bakery on the Green is dated 1741.

There are several brick buildings dating from the 19th century when there was a brickworks in the parish. These include The Old Vicarage, erected c. 1845 and extended in 1865 and 1915, with stone dressings and a hipped slate roof, as well as some groups of cottages, a few substantial houses on the road to Kingham, several barns, as well as the school and the former Methodist chapel.