Hawkesbury is a hamlet andcivil parish inSouth Gloucestershire, England. The hamlet, consisting of a few cottages around a triangular green, lies west ofHawkesbury Upton, off theA46 road.
The civil parish includes Hawkesbury itself, the larger village of Hawkesbury Upton and the hamlets ofDunkirk,Petty France andLittle Badminton. At the 2001 census the parish had a population of 1,235,[1] increasing to 1,263 at the 2011 census. Prior to 1991, what is now theHillesley and Tresham parish inStroud District formed the northern part of the parish.
The parish is in Cotswold Edgeelectoral ward, which stretches south toTormarton.
TheCotswold Way passes the two settlements and north of Hawkesbury, just east of the Cotswold Way, is a slim tower, the Somerset Monument (picture on the right).
John Marius Wilson described 19th-century Hawkesbury in hisImperial Gazetteer of England and Wales as a "tything, a parish, and a sub-district, in Chipping-Sodbury district, Gloucester…has a post office, of the name of Hawkesbury-Upton, under Chippenham, a police station, and a fair on the last Friday of Aug." The population of Hawkesbury at that time was 466 and the town had 108 houses. Together with thetithings of Upton, Hillesley, Little Badminton, and Saddlewood-with-Tresham and Killcott, the parish of Hawkesbury had a population of 2,173 in 499 houses.[2]
Hawkesbury was a rural parish inGloucestershire, in which agriculture and animal husbandry were economically dominant. The climate in southwestern Gloucestershire was partial to raising potatoes, along with domesticated animals.[3] Cattle and sheep were important to the livelihood of the residents of Hawkesbury, and a fair was held on the last Friday of August for the sale of those animals.[4] The raising of sheep was a principal source of income, primarily for their wool. Homes constructed along streams aided in the wool production industry as it provided water necessary for dying and washing.[5] This water also provided means to grind corn ingrist mills and finish cloth infulling mills.[6]
TheChurch of St Mary was built in the 12th century. It is a Grade Ilisted building.[7]
There is a monument (the 'Somerset Monument') on theCotswold Edge atgrid referenceST772878. The monument was erected in 1846 to commemorate GeneralLord Edward Somerset, a soldier son of the 5thDuke of Beaufort (whose ancestral home is at Badminton), who had served with distinction atWaterloo. The first keeper of the monument wasShadrack Byfield, a one-armed veteran of the Anglo-AmericanWar of 1812, whose memoirs of that conflict have achieved a measure of fame.
51°35′19″N2°19′50″W / 51.58859°N 2.33049°W /51.58859; -2.33049
