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Gloucestershire

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Gloucestershire Towns & Parishes

AVENING, Gloucestershire

Archives and Libraries Cemeteries Census Church History

Description and Travel Gazetteers Names, Personal

Archives and Libraries

Guide to Research Sources for the parish of Holy Cross, Avening

Cemeteries

• Some Memorial Inscriptions in The Holy Cross Churchyard, Avening, collected and transcribed by Alf Beard.

• Here is a list of Avening Church Monuments, taken from Rudders' History of Gloucester. This modern transcription is by Graham Thomas, and part of his Master Index to the South Cotswolds.

Census

• Gloucestershire - Census Returns 1841-1901 - all you ever wanted to know about the Census.

Church History

• In 1050 Brittric of Avening, then Lord of Gloucester, was sent by Edward the Confessor to be his ambassador to Baldwin, Count of Flanders. Whilst he was there, he met a young woman named Matilda, who was later to become the wife of William the Conqueror.

  Matilda was enamoured of Brittric, but he rejected her advances. As a consequence, when William became King of England, she persuaded him Brittric should be dispossessed of the manor of Avening, and Brittric was thrown into prison at Worcester - where subsequently he died.

  Matilda and William then took over Avening Court for themselves, and whilst they were in residence, superintended the building of a church, which was consecrated 14th September 1080 (Holy Cross Day).

  Many features survive from the church's Norman origins - the north aisle, one chancel arch and the main north door, with the vaulting of the chancel and the roof of the nave also being worthy of note.

  The north transept chapel houses a monument to Henry BRYDGES. Although the monument doesn't mention it he was in fact a "privateer", robbing rich galleons, but was pardoned by James I.

  The above information is a summary of an account formerly at the Holy Cross Church web site, www.holycross.co.uk, which sadly is no longer active.

Description and Travel

• Some notes on Avening are available on Stuart Flight's Stroud Area page.

Gazetteers

• The transcription of the section for Avening from the National Gazetteer (1868) provided by Colin Hinson.

Names, Personal

• Graham Thomas has compiled a list of Minchinhampton and Avening Names and Items of Interest, as part of his Master Index to the South Cotswolds. The list of names for Avening dates from 1291.

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