Littleton-upon-Severn

Littleton-upon-Severn
Littleton-upon-Severn  Littleton-upon-Severn shown within Gloucestershire
OS grid reference	ST595899
Unitary authority	South Gloucestershire
Ceremonial county	Gloucestershire
Region	South West
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Bristol
Postcode district	BS35
Police	Avon and Somerset
Fire	Avon
Ambulance	South Western
EU Parliament	South West England
UK Parliament	Northavon
List of places UK England Gloucestershire

Coordinates: 51°36′28″N 2°35′06″W / 51.6077°N 2.5851°W

Littleton-upon-Severn is a village and civil parish in South Gloucestershire near the mouth of the River Severn and is located to the west of Thornbury. Historically it belonged to the Hundred of Langley and Swinehead. In 1831 it had a population of 179 people.^[1]

A church was first mentioned as being in the village when the Abbott of Malmuesbury held a Court Leet here each year under a licence from King Edward the Martyr (975-979), and in the Domesday Book, it was listed as being in the Langley hundred, and having a priest and thirty acres of pasture. In the twelfth century, the wooden church was replaced with a stone building, and the font and piscine are also twelfth century.^[2][3]

The present parish church of St Mary's of Malmesbury is a Grade II* listed building, having been registered on 30 March 1960. It dates from the fourteenth century but was largely rebuilt in 1878. It is built out of rubble stone in the Decorated style, with a roof of fish-scale tiles. The plan consists of a nave, south porch and aisle, chancel, north vestry, and tower at the west end.^[4]

The village contains a popular 17th Century pub called The White Hart.^[5] In 2015 it as reported that locals were distressed with the prospect of a developer wanting to built a refugee centre for some 1000 migrants in the village.^[6]

Littleton Brick Pits are an artificial lagoon, once the site of clay extraction for brick making, where the Avon Wildlife Trust have reintroduced reedbeds close to the Severn Estuary, as a feeding and resting place for migrating birds.^[7]

References

1. Lewis, Samuel (1833). A Topographical Dictionary of England: With Historical and Statistical Descriptions. S. Lewis and Company. p. 111.
2. "St Mary of Malmesbury, Littleton-on-Severn". The Church of England. Retrieved 29 August 2016.
3. "The History of St Mary's, Littleton". Alveston.org. Retrieved 29 August 2016.
4. "Church of St Mary of Malmesbury, Aust". British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 29 August 2016.
5. Aird, Alisdair; Stapley, Fiona (4 September 2014). The Good Pub Guide 2015. Ebury Publishing. p. 902. ISBN 978-1-4735-0186-7.
6. "Villagers' fury over plans to build a refugee centre for 1,000 migrants in a community where only 100 people live". DailyMail. 27 November 2015. Retrieved 29 August 2016.
7. "Littleton Brick Pits". Reserves. Avon Wildlife Trust. Retrieved 9 February 2012.

External links

Media related to Littleton-upon-Severn at Wikimedia Commons