Ombersley is a village and civil parish in the Wychavon district of Worcestershire, England. As well as the village itself, the parish also covers surrounding rural areas with several small hamlets, including Holt Fleet, where Thomas Telford's 1828 Holt Fleet Bridge crosses the River Severn. At the 2021 census the parish had a population of 2,407. Since 1973 it has shared a grouped parish council with the neighbouring parish of Doverdale.
History
The name Ombersley derives from the
Old English Ambreslēah meaning 'Ambre's wood/clearing', or
amoreslēah, meaning '
yellowhammer wood/clearing'.
The first known reference to the village[Article about Ombersley, The Birmingham Post (May 2006)] was the granting of a Charter to Abbot Egwin, later Saint Egwin, of Evesham Abbey in 706 AD. This was the Charter of King Æthelweard of the Hwicce, which granted twelve cassates in Ombersley to the Benedictine Evesham Abbey.
During the reign of William the Conqueror, the Domesday Book indicates the village was within an exclave of the ancient hundred of Fishborough in 1086 and remained the property of the Abbey of Evesham (Saint Mary).[ Open Domesday Online: Ombersley, accessed November 2017.] It remained the property of the abbey until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the early 16th century. By 1848 the village was within the parish of Ombersley (St. Ambrose), in the hundred of Oswaldslow.[ A Topographical Dictionary of England. Originally published by S Lewis, London, 1848. Pages 476-79.]
Royal forest
Ombersley was part of a
royal forest until 1229. The forest gives the village its name.
Ombersley Court
Ombersley Court is traditional home of the
Baron Sandys, many of whom are buried in the family mausoleum in the churchyard of St Andrew's parish church. When St Andrew's was built in its current form between 1825 and 1829, the chancel of the old church was adapted for use as mausoleum for the lords of the manor.
The architect of the church was
Thomas Rickman; the cost of building was £18,000 of which two-thirds was contributed by Mary Sandys, dowager Marchioness of Downshire.
[Goodall, John (2015). Parish Church Treasures. London: Bloomsbury; p. 248] It is grade I
Listed building.
Governance
There are three tiers of local government covering Ombersley, at parish, district and county level: Ombersley and Doverdale Parish Council, Wychavon District Council, and Worcestershire County Council. The parish council is a grouped parish council, established in 1973 to cover the two parishes of Doverdale and Ombersley. They remain legally separate civil parishes, although they are sometimes inaccurately described as being a single parish.
Geography
Ombersley is 6 miles north of Worcester, 4 miles west of
Droitwich, and 10 miles south of
Kidderminster on the intersection of the A449 & A4133. The western boundary of the parish is the
River Severn; to the east, Hadley Brook forms much of the boundary with the parish of Doverdale in the east, and the
River Salwarpe, to the north of the
Droitwich Canal, forms the southern boundary before it joins the Severn.
Listed buildings
there are 151 [[listed building]]s in the parish. Ombersley Court is grade I listed, five buildings are grade II* listed and 145 are at grade II.[To view the full list, go to https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/advanced-search?searchType=nhleadvancedsearch and enter "Ombersley" as "Parish"]
Notes
References and further reading
External links
