Northleach

15th-century east window of SS Peter and Paul parish church, with glass designed by Christopher Webb and made in 1963

The earliest record of the parish church is from about 1100.[2] Little from this period survives in the current Church of England parish church of SS Peter and Paul except some Norman masonry in the west wall of the lady chapel. The next oldest part of the church is a 14th-century cusped doorway on the north side of the chancel.[3]

From the late 14th century the church was almost completely rebuilt in Perpendicular Gothic style. The west tower was built in about 1380–1400, and the font is also late 14th-century. The current nave and south porch were built in the first half of the 15th century, as was the pulpit. The nave has tall five-bay arcades with slender octagonal columns ornamented with concave sides. The nave clerestory was paid for by John Fortey, a wool merchant, who died in 1459. The lady chapel is south of the chancel, was completed in 1489 and has a squint to the high altar in the chancel.[4]

The church was restored 1877–84 to designs by the Gothic Revival architect James Brooks. The chancel received a stained glass east window made by Alexander Gibbs in 1871. Little of Brooks' work at Northleach survives, except for his choir stalls in the north aisle. In 1920 a new high altar with riddel posts designed by FE Howard was installed in the chancel.[4]

In 1961 a new restoration was begun, which includes seats designed by Sir Basil Spence and made by Gordon Russell. In the chancel Gibbs' 1871 east window was replaced by a modern one of Christ in Majesty made by Christopher Webb in 1963.[4] The church is now a Grade I listed building.[5] Its benefice is now combined with the parishes of Cold Aston, Compton Abdale, Farmington, Hampnett, Haselton, Notgrove and Turkdean.[6]

The parish church has a number of monumental brasses. Most portray local wool merchants in civilian clothes with their wives: John Taylour (died 1400) and his wife Joane, Thomas Fortey (died 1447) with his wife Agnes and her first husband William Sors, John Fortey (died 1459), William Midwinter (died 1501) and his wife, Robert Serche (died 1501) and his wife Anne, Thomas Busshe (died 1526) and his wife Johane. In the chancel is a brass portraying a priest, William Lander (died 1530), in his Mass vestments.[7]

In 1700 William and Robert Cor of Aldbourne, Wiltshire cast a ring of six bells for the west tower. In 1897, the year of the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria, Mears and Stainbank of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry cast a new treble and second bell to increase the ring to eight, and the enlarged ring was rehung. In 1922 the sixth (formerly the fourth) bell from 1700 was recast.[2][8]

The church has been described by an authoritative arbiter as, "next to Cirencester the most beautiful church in the Cotswolds".[9]

Dissenters were recorded in Northleach in the 17th and 18th centuries, and by 1796 a Congregationalist group established was meeting in a room in the town. A chapel for it was built at West End in 1798, with a burial ground that remained in use until the 1950s. The chapel was recorded in 1801 as sharing a minister with the chapel at Pancakehill in Chedworth, an arrangement that continued until about 1950. In 1851 the congregation numbered 80 and in 1860 a new chapel was built for it on the main street by the marketplace. In 1900 membership had declined to 28. In 1964 the chapel needed extensive repairs, so it was sold and converted into a house. For a while the congregation worshipped in the Cotswold Hall, but by 1969 it had so few members that it was meeting in a member's home.[2]

In 1821 a group was recorded as meeting at Northleach who may have been Wesleyan Methodists. A small chapel for the group was built at Millend in 1827 and had a Sunday school by 1833. In 1851 the chapel's afternoon service had a congregation of 100 and its evening service had 117. The chapel was a member of the Cheltenham Circuit, and often members of the Cheltenham congregation walked 13 miles (21 km) each way on Sundays to conduct services at Northleach. Membership later declined, partly attracted by the new Congregational chapel opened in 1860, and the Wesleyan chapel was closed in 1883. The Primitive Methodists soon bought the chapel but their mission in Northleach was unsuccessful. By 1889 The Salvation Army had bought the chapel, but they too were unsuccessful. The Congregationalists had bought the former Wesleyan chapel by 1912 and used it as an institute until about 1923.[2]

The Oxford – Gloucester road was turnpiked in 1751, and by the 1770s it was the main road for both stagecoaches and mail coaches linking Gloucester and South Wales with London. Northleach became a staging post, with the King's Head became the main coaching inn, and by about 1820 the Sherborne Arms trying to win a share of the trade.[2]

In 1841 the Cirencester Branch Line opened and the coach trade lost traffic to the Great Western Railway. A truncated coach service via Northleach then linked Gloucester and Cheltenham with Steventon railway station in what was then Berkshire, until in 1845 the Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway completed the Golden Valley Line between Swindon and Gloucester via Kemble. By 1853 Northleach's only remaining coach was a single service between Cheltenham and Oxford.[2]

Proposals to build a railway via Northleach were brought forward through a Bill put to Parliament in 1860, however met with objections (chiefly from the Great Western Railway Company) and failed at the Committee Stage.[10] In 1862 the Bourton-on-the-Water Railway opened, with its terminus at Bourton-on-the-Water 5 ¹⁄₂ miles (9 km) northeast of Northleach. In 1881 the Banbury and Cheltenham Direct Railway was completed between Bourton and Cheltenham Leckhampton and opened a station at Notgrove 4 miles (6.4 km) north of Northleach.

The Oxford – Cheltenham road ceased to be a turnpike in 1870.[2] It has been classified as the A40 road since the 1920s, and later in the 20th century it was diverted ¹⁄₂ mile (800 m) north of the town by the building of a new bypass road, opening in 1984. Since the 1920s the Fosse Way between Cirencester and Halford, Warwickshire has been classified as the A429 road.

In 1962 British Railways closed and dismantled the line between Bourton and Cheltenham and withdrew passenger trains between Bourton and Kingham. In 1964 BR withdrew freight services from Bourton and dismantled the line between there and Kingham. Since then the nearest railway stations to Northleach have been Kemble on the Golden Valley Line and Kingham on the Cotswold Line between Oxford and Moreton-in-Marsh. Kingham is nearer in a straight line, but each is about 16 miles (26 km) from Northleach by road.

The former House of Correction, built in 1791 and extended in 1842

In 1791 the House of Correction was built outside Northleach on land just west of Fosse Way. It was a new prison designed by the architect William Blackburn on principles advocated by the prison reformer Sir George Onesiphorus Paul. Petty sessions were held at the prison, serving a Petty sessional division whose extent was confirmed in 1836 as 25 parishes. By 1841 a detachment of the new Gloucestershire Constabulary was based at Northleach, and a women's wing was added to the prison in 1842. In 1857 the prison was reduced to holding only remand prisoners, and part of the building was converted into the police station. In 1859 part of the keeper's house was converted into the petty sessions court.[2]

Parliament passed the Poor Law Amendment Act in 1834 and a poor law union based on Northleach was established in 1836. A workhouse was designed on a cruciform plan by George Wilkinson of Witney, Oxfordshire and built at the east end of the town.[2][11]

From 1846 a division of the Gloucester county court sat at Northleach, initially at the King's Head Inn.[2] Under the Local Government Act 1894, a Northleach rural district was established in 1895 administering 29 local parishes.[2] An electoral ward with the same name exists. The area and population of this ward are identical to that of the parish.

In 1936–37 the main cell blocks of the prison were demolished, the height of the perimeter wall was reduced and the building became the local police station. In 1972 the police moved to a new station in West End. The following year Northleach petty sessional division was merged with that of Stow-on-the-Wold, and all trials were moved there. In 1980 the surviving prison buildings were converted into a museum or rural life.[2] They are now a Grade II* listed building.[12]

In the late 1940s the workhouse was converted into a geriatric hospital. It was closed in 1987, sold, converted into a private nursing home and reopened as such in 1995.[2] The County Court ceased sitting at Northleach in 1950.[2] Under the Local Government Act 1972, Northleach Rural District Council was dissolved in 1974 and the area became part of the new Cotswold District Council.

In 1559 a bequest by wealthy landowner and sheep-farmer, Hugh Westwood of Chedworth, founded Northleach Grammar School. In 1560 a building on the corner of High Street and Conduit Street (now Farmington Road) was bought by the town to be the school building.[2] In 1606 an Act of Parliament vested its patronage and rights of presentation in The Queen's College, Oxford.[13] College House was built in the 17th century and extended in the late 18th or early 19th century.[14] It was the headmaster's house and also lodged the boarding pupils. In 1877 it was reorganised under the Endowed Schools Acts of 1873 and 1874, and it had 30 pupils in 1885.[2] It ran out of funds and was closed by its governors about 1904.[15]

In 1927 a new, co-educational Westwood's Grammar School was built at the east end of the town. It later came under the administration of Gloucestershire County Council. In 1987 it had 305 pupils in 1987. In 1988 it was closed and its pupils were transferred to the Cotswold School at Bourton-on-the-Water.[2] In 1989 the Westwood Educational Trust was established.[15] Westwood's Grammar School has since been demolished and the Westwood Community Centre built on its site.

A National School in Northleach was founded in 1831 and had 32 pupils in 1833. School buildings on a new site south of Millend were started in 1874 and completed the next year, when the school moved in with about 117 pupils. By 1897 it had been enlarged with capacity for 200 pupils, and average attendance was 144. In 1997 Northleach Church of England Primary School had 122 pupils.[2]

It is one of the few Gloucestershire primary schools with its own outdoor swimming pool.[16] The pool is open to the public for a small charge in the summer holidays.

Northleach has a coach link with Gloucester, Cheltenham, Burford and Oxford. It is route 853, run seven days a week by Swanbrook Services of Staverton. From Mondays to Fridays there are three journeys each way: two as far as Gloucester and one only as far as Cheltenham. On Saturdays there are four journeys each way: two as far as Gloucester and two only as far as Cheltenham. On Sundays and bank holidays there is only one journey each way.[23]

Northleach has a bus link with Cheltenham, Charlton Kings, Andoversford, Sherborne, Clapton-on-the-Hill, Windrush and Little Barrington. It is run by Pulhams Coaches of Bourton-on-the-Water and is numbered 801 between Lechlade and Northleach but 809 between Northleach and Little Barrington.[24]