A Cotswolds Village

For more than 6,000 years, humans have interacted with the Cotswolds landscape, each generation leaving its mark. It is estimated that there has been some kind of permanent settlement in Brailes since at least circa. ~300BCE. Around 1000 BCE in what is now called England, the Neolithic “Cruthni” or ‘painted men’ were driven away to the North and West by the Goidels, the first wave of migrating Celts from Ireland. They in turn again fled North and West to escape the Brythons (Celtic Britons) who in around 400 ~ 300 BCE (Middle Iron Age) had themselves moved north from France. These Brythons may have been the constructors of the British Camp on Castle Hill, which today still retains the three springs it had in the days before recorded history. When another tribe, the Catuvellauni, became dominant in the South East of England around 100 BCE, it is likely Brailes marked one of their borders with the Dobunni to the north and west. The Catuvellauni resistance to Caesar was brief and Brailes, like much of England, was annexed into the Roman empire. From 500 CE Brailes saw Saxons, Danes, and Normans come and go. Regardless of whoever has declared themselves ‘Chief’, ‘King’, or ‘Marquess’, for over 2400 years Brailes has in one form or another been an important, and independently minded, border town between the north, south, and west of central Albion.

Ancient settlements
Neolithic long barrows – such Belas Knap south of Winchcombe, Bronze Age round barrows and Iron Age hill forts along the scarp, were important markers of territory. They were built raised high up, reflecting the symbolic power of the dramatic scenery. Castle Hill in Brailes is reputed to be from the Iron Age and certainly offered significant strategic or honorific symbolism. Stone circles, such as the Rollright Stones near Chipping Norton, and other stone monuments, remind us that the people of Brailes have engaged with multiple belief systems and ruling orders over the millennia, but their relationship with, and dependence on, the land has remained constant.

A landscape farmed for generations
Ancient field systems and terraces, and fine examples of ridge and furrow, attest the working lives of people in Brailes over long periods of the past. This is still a living and working landscape and village and farming here has always had an impact on the quality of the landscape. Today, over 80% of the Cotswolds is agricultural land, much of it on an underlying geology of Jurassic limestone. Stretching for nearly 60 miles, the Cotswolds represents one of the best known sections of the outcrop of oolitic limestone that extends across England from Lyme Bay in Dorset, to the North Sea coast. In recent decades there have been changes in farming patterns and in the crops that are grown across the parish, as well as growing awareness of the role of farming and farmers in mitigating the impacts of climate change.

Romans thrived in the Cotswolds
Roman engineers carved out the magnificent Ermin Way, linking Gloucester to Cirencester, and the Fosse Way, from Bath to Stow-on-the-Wold and Moreton-in-Marsh, Leicester, eventually Hull. These routes allowed fast movement between great towns, vast rural estates, and villas. Brailes sits on top of one of the Cotswold’s northern escarpments and, along with Edge Hill settlements, would have been an important way and observation point near the Fosse Way marking the last settlements at edge of the then North-western limit of the Roman empire. Chedworth Roman Villa lies only 23.5 miles to the South-west.

A medieval heyday
In the late Middle Ages the prosperity generated by the wool trade went into bricks and mortar and has left the Cotswolds with many magnificent churches, manor houses and market towns, including Chipping Campden, Chipping Norton, and of course St. George’s Cathedral of the Feldon.. Enduring symbols of the wealth that the wool trade, brick, and other trades generated for Brailes can be seen in the ‘town houses’ near the George Coach Inn and the former Brewery in Upper Brailes and a number of large properties such as ‘Brailes House’. The distinctive appearance of Brailes and many villages and towns in the Cotswolds is the result of a style created by craftsmen using local stone. Brailes was a large and busy settlement throughout the medieval period and an important stop on the old Salt Way.

Distinctive dry stone walls
Brailes still has evidence of one of the most distinctive features of the Cotswolds: dry stone walls. Much of what is seen in the village today is from the 18th and 19th centuries, when large areas of open fields and downland were enclosed, but there have been dry stone walls in the area since Neolithic times.

Brailes from BCE to 1000 CE

from Saxons to the 1600s

In the early thirteenth century after a dispute with Walter de Cantilupe, vicar of Brailes, a certain Richard of Droitwich acknowledged his obligation to render amounts of salt annually to the church of Brailes. At Domesday Brailes comprised 46 hides of land, rather more than 8½ square miles; (the present area of the parish is roughly 6 square miles). Within the ecclesiastical parish of Brailes are included the former manors of Chelmscote (held in 1190 by William de Turville) and Winderton (held in 1242 from the Earl of Warwick by Robert Deyville). When Robert de Clifford, who then owned the Winderton estate, fell at Bannockburn in 1314, it was said to provide an annual rent of one hundred shillings. In addition, the nearby village of Cherington was counted a hamlet of Brailes in mediaeval times. Click the image below to look in detail and guess where you live!

from Stewarts & Sheldons To Our Village Today

In 1248 Brailes was granted a Monday market and a three-day Fair ‘on the eve, day and morrow of St. George’s day’ – a valuable extra source of revenue – and Brailes remained a bustling market town with a thriving water mill and an important role in the wool trade. This prosperity was reflected in the fact that the church we see today now began to take shape. Subsequently, and for several centuries, Brailes continued to be a ‘town-ship’ of some importance; a document of the reign of Edward VI (1547-53) states that ‘the parisshe ys of greate compasse, and hathe almost 2000 houselying people’. It was probably, therefore, one of the largest towns in the county, after Coventry and Warwick, at a time when Birmingham was a mere hamlet. Aerial surveys in recent years have shown how modern fields conceal extensive networks of ancient roads and homes, ‘tofts and crofts’, in several areas of Upper and Lower Brailes, Grove End, Winderton and Chelmscote.

1845 A Topographical Dictionary of England – a report about Brailes

“Brailes (St. George), a parish, in the union of Shipston-upon-Stour, Brailes division of the hundred of Kington, S. division of the county of Warwick, 4 miles (E. by S.) from Shipston; containing, with the hamlets of Chelmscott and Winderton, 1284 inhabitants.
Prior to the Conquest, this lordship was in the possession of Edwin, Earl of Mercia; and subsequently, including the hamlets of Chelmscott and Winderton, it yielded to the Conqueror “no less than £55 yearly, with 20 horse loads of salt”. Henry III., in 1248, granted a charter for a market to be held here on Monday, which has been long discontinued; also a fair, on the eve of the festival of St. George and the two following days, now inconsiderable.

In the 13th of Edward I., William de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, then owner of the manor, claimed by prescription, and was allowed certain privileges; viz., a gallows, with assize of bread and beer. The parish contains 5407 acres of land, of which about 2000 are arable and 3000 pasture; the village is situated on the turnpike-road to Banbury, and is of considerable extent.

There is a manufactory for livery shag, plush, &c., in which nearly 100 persons are employed.

The living is a vicarage, valued in the King’s books at £25; net income, £344; patron, Samuel Thornton, Esq.; impropriator, George Bishopp, Esq., M.D. Under an inclosure act passed in 1784, land and annual money payments were assigned, in lieu of all tithes and moduses, for Lower Brailes. The church was probably erected in the time of the Conqueror, and was given, in the reign of his son, Henry I., to the canons of Kenilworth; it is a large and handsome edifice, combining the early, decorated, and later English styles, with a lofty tower supported by tall buttresses, and crowned with battlements and pinnacles, containing six bells; the interior was modernised in 1824.

A guild, consisting of a warden, brethren, and sisters, was founded in the church by Richard Nevill, Earl of Warwick; the revenue, in the 37th of Henry VIII., was £18. 13. 2., out of which a grammar school was then supported.

There are places of worship for the Society of Friends and Roman Catholics. A free school, probably founded about the end of the reign of Henry VIII., is endowed with an improved income of £70. There are also a school for girls, and one for infants, besides a school for Roman Catholic children; and several bequests have been made for the benefit of the poor, of which the principal is one by William Prestidge in 1732, now producing £36 per annum.

There was anciently a chapel at Chelmscott, in which a chantry for four priests was founded by Thomas de Pakinton, of Brailes, in 1322. In Upper Brailes, at the distance of 1¼ mile from the church, is a chalybeate spring, the water of which has been used with considerable advantage in cases of scrofula.”

Source: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis Fifth Edition Published London; by S. Lewis and Co., 13, Finsbury Place, South. M. DCCC. XLV. [source]

1978 Focus magazine. Vol.1, No.1, July – Focus on brailes

Old Maps of brailes

Ordnance Survey six-inch to the mile 1888-1913

Provisional edition 1937-1961