Compton Abdale
| Compton Abdale | |
| Gloucestershire | |
|---|---|
 Compton Abdale | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SP060166 |
| Location: | 51.848309, -1.91292 |
| Data | |
| Population: | 125 (2011) |
| Post town: | Cheltenham |
| Postcode: | GL54 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Cotswold |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
The Cotswolds |
Compton Abdale is a small village in Gloucestershire on the Roman "White Way" which ran North from Cirencester ("Corinium.") The village lies about nine miles north of Cirencester, a mile south of the A40 London road.
In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Compton Abdale:
COMPTON-ABDALE, a parish in Northleach district, Gloucester; on the river Colne, 3 miles WNW of Northleach, and 9 SE by E of Cheltenham r. station. Post town, Northleach, under Cheltenham. Acres, 2, 215. Real property, £2, 047. Pop., 258. Houses, 49. The property is divided among a few. Part of the surface is heath. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol. Value, £81. Patrons, the Dean and Chapter of Bristol. The church was repaired in 1859.[1]
The parish church, St Oswald's, situated at the top of a steep hill, dates back to the 13th century and features unusual gargoyles. At the foot of the church path in the centre of the village a spring-fed brook emerges from a "crocodile" head constructed from stone by a local mason in the mid-19th century. This brook flows through the village before eventually joining the River Coln at Cassey Compton, which in turn joins the Thames near Lechlade.
The remains of a Roman villa to the south of the village, in a wood now called Compton Grove, were known to local people in the 19th century, when some surviving materials were removed. The villa site was excavated in 1931 by a schoolmaster and pupils from Cheltenham Grammar School, but the principal trench left by their excavations was later filled from the brook by the landowner to form a swimming pool.
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Compton Abdale) |
References
- ↑ Wilson, John Marius: Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (A. Fullerton & Co., 1870)
- Parishes: Compton Abdale: A History of the County of Gloucester - Volume 9 pp 31-44: Bradley Hundred. The Northleach Area of the Cotswolds (Victoria County History)
- Compton Abdale: 'Ancient and Historical Monuments in the County of Gloucester Iron Age and Romano-British Monuments in the Gloucestershire Cotswolds' (HMSO, 1976)
