Tirley is located in the north-eastern part of the County, just south of Tewkesbury. It is bounded to one side by the River Severn. Most of the land lies below the 100 ft. contour line, sloping down to the riverside meadows which are liable to flooding.
Settlement in the parish is scattered, with three centres – Tirley Street, Haw, and Town Street. The Church, Vicarage and School are all detached from the other centres of population
Map is used courtesy of https://www.archiuk.com/
The Church of Saint Michael and All Angels
The church is kept with loving care , but faces the increasing problem of flooding.
In July 2007, a disastrous flood struck Gloucestershire and the church was inundated, resulting in its interior and churchyard being extensively damaged. Despite the disastrous flooding and the distress caused, the congregation, supported by the local community, the insurance company and many historic building professionals, resolved to renew their church. Their traumatic experience has presented opportunities to make the building more fit for purpose and more resilient to future flood events. It has deepened a sense of belonging and the valuing of heritage in the community and has ensured the historical continuity of the church and its many stories.
The picture shows the flooding in 2007.
Seen from the organ loft, one can see that the new seating has replaced the damaged pews, and the step into the church, which the nave altar stands on, was moved forward into the aisle.
The wall painting of the arch was investigated as part of the restoration project that took place between 1994 and 1998.
It revealed 3 phases of decoration, which were covered a limewash layer in the 19th century, and seems to have the Stuart Royal Arms, which covered a previous coat of arms, then the Hanoverian Coat of Arms.
The parish chest is thought to be from the 15th century and is unusually placed on trestles. The 3 locks (as is usual with these chests) ensure that it could only be opened when the vicar was present with the two churchwardens.
The organ was fitted as part of the 1997 restoration. It is about 120 years old and was originally in Charfield church. When the church was declared redundant, Tirley purchased it for £200. Before it was in Charfield, it was apparently located in a large house nearby, but there the trail runs cold.
A Mass Dial was scratched on the exterior of the church. Their function was to show the times of the Masses, but gradually several other times were added.
At the bottom up to the staircase to the (removed) Rood Loft, one can see a scratched representation of a knight. Opposite are a number of etched crosses, considered to be ‘pilgrims crosses’ and would have been etched by those going on the Crusades, or, on their return as a thanksgiving for their life having been spared.
I was fortunate to be shown round the church by one of the churchwardens, who revealed much that would have gone unnoticed.
The chair, one of a pair placed either side of the altar, were made from pew ends. Apparently the grotesque face was carved to discourage gossips!
The carving of a footprint is normally under the altar, and signifies that a baby was buried there.
Brian Waters, author of Severn Tide described John Carter of Tirley as a deaf and toothless individual who built the church clock from the discarded parts of a chaff-cutter, a roasting jack, a bean drill, a separator, a winnowing machine, a bicycle pedal, the brake rods of a cycle, a scythe, a cannon ball, a pistol barrel and old farmyard weights on a hundred year old lathe that he inherited from his great-uncle .
Brian Waters also describes how John Carter remembered the great flood of May 1905, and how John Carter told him how he had marked the high point of the flood water, by carving two small holes and the word ‘May’ on the east corner of the church tower.
The Methodist Chapel
The Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, now a private house, was built in 1887, on the site of one built in 1821.
When it closed, the congregation joined the church congregation. The churchwarden told me with great fondness of how, as a girl, she and her friends would go for ‘a good sing’ at the chapel.
Nearby, there was a Bible Christian chapel, called the ‘Lower Chapel’ to differentiate it from the ‘Upper Chapel’. Bible Christians were an offshoot of the Methodists. Unfortunately, I cannot locate where it stood.
The Church of the Latter Day Saints in Tirley
These two pictures are examples of the older housing in the village. There are many more modern houses, and a good number of old houses were demolished in the 19th Century.
The Severn dominates the parish, as it passes on down to Gloucester.
While the crossing of the river has been an important feature in the history of the parish, the river itself has also played a major part. Its tendency to flood has brought danger and damage, but also an increased fertility to the meadow-land. As a means of transport the river has been used by the inhabitants of the parish for a double traffic, the carriage of hay grown in the district upstream to the Midlands, and the return carriage of coal; the Goose Stone wharf just above Haw Bridge was in use until the early 1930’s.
The inhabitants of Tirley also exploited the river in a less obvious way, as recorded by 18th-century writers: by stirring the river bed and using nets from boats in times of flood, or by raking in summer, they got a large quantity of small smooth coal which fetched a good price for use in the furnaces of Gloucester.
Jeremiah Hawkins (d. 1835) of the Haw achieved local fame for his enthusiastic fox-hunting and for his habit of swimming his horse across the Severn. In his old age he was one of the Haw Bridge commissioners.
From a plaque on the bridge –
‘The first bridge was built a few yards [from the present bridge] in 1824 at the instigation of the townspeople of Cheltenham with a view to establishing a route to South-West Wales which would by-pass Gloucester and increase Cheltenham’s trade. It was a graceful three span structure with slender cast iron arch ribs built to the design of James Walker.
In December 1956 a large vessel, coming downstream with the river in spate, struck the arch ribs of the western span and caused a complete collapse. A temporary military bridge supported by the old abutments and temporary trestle piers was constructed by the Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers in May 1959 to carry traffic during the building of the new bridge.’
The new bridge was completed in 1961.
Public Houses in Tirley
The Haw Bridge Inn was devastated by the Great Gloucestershire Flood of July 2007. Five feet of floodwater wrecked the pub. After a £300,000 refurbishment the Haw Bridge Inn re-opened on December 8th 2007. Just five weeks afterwards the pub flooded again, causing thousands of pounds worth of damage to the pub cellar and the gardens, which had just been returfed at a cost of £10,000.
The photograph is with permission of gloucestershirepubs.co.uk.
The New Inn pub, on the opposite side of the road, was also devastated and finally reopened in October 2008 under new owners and a new identity, the Riverside Inn. It is now closed.
Haw Farm
A charming farmhouse, sitting next to the river. The summer house is mentioned in Pevsner as ‘attractive gazebo with pedimented doorcase’. Presumably the feature on the apex of the roof was a sundial.
The Malt House
The Malt House, again, facing onto the river, has a classical front masking its workaday function.