Flaxley
Today,Flaxleyoffers a pleasant picturesque wooded
scene and is difficult to imagine it any other way,
but it has a strong industrial past, notably of iron
furnaces, forges and water mills. The earliest known
forge was present as early as 1150 and at least five
mills have been identified as utilising the waters of
Westbury Brook which runs down the valley. The earliest
and most famous industrial site is Guns Mill, (at SO67519),
now a luxurious guesthouse. This blast furnace, was
built by Sir John Wintour, operated between 1629 to
1743 and was named after William Gunne, the owner of
an earlier mill on the site. Guns Mill was used primarily
for armament production and in 1629, the Crown ordered
that 610 guns were to be made there and sent to Holland,
but many were subsequently used by both sides in the
English Civil War. The furnace was destroyed by order
of Parliament in 1650 but it was rebuilt in 1683 and
remained in use until c1743 when it became a paper mill.
The latter closed in 1879 but several of the furnace's
buildings remain and the site is now a scheduled monument
as it is the finest remaining example of a charcoal
blast furnace from this period in the country.
Flaxley is also famous for its old Cistercian abbey
founded between 1148 - 1154 by Roger, Earl of Hereford,
at the spot where his father, Miles of Gloucester, was
killed whilst out hunting. The abbey and its monks were
initially favoured by the Crown and it was granted land
(by Henry II in 1158) as well as timber and woodlands
(by Henry III in 1227) The abbey survived as a monastic
entity until the Dissolution in 1536 - 7 when its lands
and manor were granted to Sir William Kingston, the
Constable of the Tower of London (who supervised the
execution of Ann Boleyn). The present Church of St Mary,
with its contrasting red and grey Forest stone, was
built in 1856, it has a richly decorated interior and
a very elaborate font made of Painswick (Cotswold) stone
with marble columns on octagonal steps.
Lying just west of Flaxley in Welshbury Woods, it Welshbury
Hill-fort. This Iron Age hill fort has impressive triple
defensive rampart and ditches on its south and west
sides with a single bank and ditch on the north and
east and an entrance. It lies on Forestry Commission
land, and is accessible to the public, it has never
been evacuated but in recent years it has been damaged
by forestry operations and to minimise this the Forestry
commission has reverted to using hoses on the site.
Two interesting archaeological finds are associated
with Welshbury, firstly a Celtic electrum coin which
was found in fields nearby and depicts a stag or horse
and secondly, an iron spearhead of Roman military style,
which was found inside the ramparts after ground disturbance
due to logging. Below the north ramparts of Welshbury
is the enigmatic St Anthony's Well, an ancient spring
whose name dates from the medieval period. However prehistoric
flint implements have been found in the springs vicinity
as well as Iron Age and Roman artefacts and it seems
likely that the well was a ritual site for a long period
of time.
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Churches
St. Mary, FlaxleyThis originated as a gateway chapel of a Cistercian Abbey which was founded in c1150. During the 1530's the abbey became a mansion due to the general dissolusion of the monasteries and therefore the chapel became a church. Inside, there is a monument, with cherubs, to Abraham Clark dated 1683 and tablets to the Crawley and Boevey families. The church was rebuilt in 1856 and was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott and is red grit with forest stone dressings. The inside of the church is very richly decorated with carved hood mould stops, encaustic tiles, a fine pulpit, font and reredos carved by J Birnie Philip.
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