The parish of Deerhurst lies almost entirely between the River Severn and the main Gloucester Tewkesbury road, 8 miles north of Gloucester and 3 miles south of Tewkesbury.
There are 3 settlements – Deerhurst, Deerhurst Walton, and Apperley.
The land is low-lying, and subject to flooding.
St Mary’s Priory Church
The settlement of Deerhurst seems to have grown up around the priory church.
The village declined during the 20th century and several cottages were pulled down after severe flooding in 1947 because, in view of the frequent flooding, it was considered uneconomic to keep them in repair. In 1964 the village had about 15 houses.
The church is possibly the best Anglo-Saxon church in Britain, and parts of it date back to the 9th Century.
The 14th Century Priory House, is linked to the church, on the east side of what would have been a Benedictine cloister.
The remarkable font dates back to the late 9th Century. It was discarded in 1653, and was rediscovered at a local farm in 1853, where it was being used as a drinking trough for livestock. The base was found at the Coalhouse Inn 26 years later, and the two were reunited.
[Interestingly, Arthur Mee and Pevsner tell very different narratives of its travels].
The prominent tombstone to Hugh James is something of a mystery.
Mr James was a currier from Abergele, married to Jane (nee Jeffries) and had four daughters – Mary, Margaret, Catherine and Elizabeth.
Mary was housekeeper at Apperley Court, and her sister Catherine was married to the Court’s gardener, Thomas Dean. I can find no record of the other daughters.
But there is also no record of Hugh after the ’51 Census, when he was living in Abergele. I am intrigued to know where he was in the missing two census’, and how he died in Apperley.
Odda’s Chapel
Near to the church is another remarkable Anglo-Saxon building, Odda’s Chapel.
It was built in 1056, by Earl Odda, in memory of his brother, Aelfric, who died at Deerhurst. The dedication stone was found in an orchard in the 17th Century, and is now in the Ashmolean in Oxford, but a facsimile is in the chapel. It gives the date of the dedication – 12th April, 1056. This precise dating makes it unique for a pre-Conquest building.
It was rediscovered in 1885, when repairs were made to what was thought to be an ordinary half-timbered house.
The school was built in 1856.
A local folk tale recounts of how there was once a large dragon that was poisoning the villagers with its fiery breath and eating their cattle. The locals petitioned the king, who issued a proclamation saying that whosoever should kill the dragon would be rewarded with an estate in the parish, which then belonged to the crown. The man who succeeded was John Smith, a local labourer, who put a large quantity of milk at the entrance to the dragon’s lair when it was away and then hid nearby. When the dragon came back it drank all of the milk and, feeling full, lay down to sleep in the sun, ruffling up its scales to allow the air to circulate. This was what Smith had been waiting for and he ran up and chopped off the dragon’s head by striking the dragon’s neck between the scales with a large axe. In the 18th century, the Smiths still possessed this estate and the axe was still being passed from father to son.
Public Houses
In Victorian times the Coal House was the unloading point for cargoes of coal bound for Cheltenham. Bargees would transport the coal downriver from the Midlands and unload at various wharves along the River Severn. From Apperley wharf wagons laden with coal were taken up the narrow lane into the village.
There has been a pub on the site since at least 1750 and it has had several identities.
The River Severn is prone to flooding at Apperley and the Coal House has often been inundated with floodwater. Despite the heroic attempts at fighting back the rising water, it is usually nature that has the upper hand. In January 1988 there were five inches of water in the living quarters and two inches in the bar. A reporter from the ‘Citizen’ accessed the pub by boat and described the scene inside – ‘carpets have been ruined and the wallpaper was beginning to peel. Even the piano was propped up on crates.’ However, there was far worse to come. During the Great Gloucestershire Flood of July 2007 the pub was six feet deep in flood water.
(with thanks to gloucestershirepubs.co.uk for the information)
The Coal House
The Farmers Arms
The Farmers Arms dates back to the 16th century. It was a Whitbread pub in the 1970s and 1980s and was sold as a free house in 1989.
Apperley Court
Apperley Court was originally a modest 18th-century farmhouse but was much expanded in 1817 for sisters Julianna and Charlotte Strickland. The family were typically Victorian in their philanthropy, supporting local charities, schools, almshouses and churches.
Both sisters were talented botanical artists and 2 volumes of their work were published. Their cousin (and brother-in-law) Strickland Freeman published their work as ‘Select Specimens of British Plants’. Only two parts with 10 plates ever appeared, but the quality of the plates was recognised and Sir J.E. Smith refers to “those exquisite elaborate plates … said to be the performances of two ladies, who certainly rank as artists in the first line”.
After their death, the estate passed to Henry Eustatius, their brother.
Apperley Church was built as a chapel of ease by Henry Eustacius Strickland in 1855, so that parishioners would not have to walk the long distance to the parish church at Deerhurst. As far as was possible, local materials and craftsmen were employed in its construction.
It is unlikely at the outset that Strickland realised how difficult the creation of a new church would prove. The cost of building were nearly double the original estimate, and he had to enter into a lengthy correspondence with legal advisors and church officials over the technicalities of having the church consecrated.
The Bishop of Gloucester would not agree to license the chapel without consecration, and would not consecrate it without the land and the building being conveyed to the Church Building Commissioners. The church was empty and unused for a year after its completion.
Even then, things did not run smoothly, as the church was too small for all the people who wished to use it.
Apperley Methodist Chapel was built in 1904. It superseded a previous chapel nearby, which is now a private dwelling. This, earlier, chapel was built by the Moravians and was one of only four Moravian chapels in the County.
Coombe Hill Canal
The canal was opened in 1796 and closed 80 years later in 1876, running for almost 3 miles. The intention was for it to allow Staffordshire and Forest of Dean coal to be moved as near to Cheltenham as possible, thus minimising cartage on the rough roads of the time. However, local geography meant that there was a gap of nearly five miles between the canal and the town, so the canal was not as useful as it might have been.
The site is now an SSSI and during winter floods attracts hundreds of wildfowl while the canal itself is home to a number of rare beetles and two species of fly found nowhere else in Britain.
The photograph shows the remains of the old lock gate on the River Severn.
