English Bicknor

The Domesday Book of 1086 records Bicknor as Bicanofre. The second morpheme of the toponym, ōfer, is thought to come from the Old English for river bank, referring to the two villages' positions either side of the river. Various hypotheses have been put forward for the origin of the first morpheme in the name, but may mean a place belonging to Bica.[2]

English Bicknor is one of the ancient villages of the Forest of Dean, situated at the top of a hill overlooking the Wye Valley, and once the site of English Bicknor Castle, a motte and bailey castle, the remnants of which can still be seen.[3] Close to the village is Bicknor Court, an imposing house some 400 years old.[4] Situated between Symond's Yat and Lower Lydbrook on high ground opposite its namesake Welsh Bicknor. English Bicknor is first recorded as a hamlet in 1066.[5]

The parish is primarily agricultural and industrial. Its main attraction is the small Norman Church of England parish church of St Mary the Virgin which has notable internal 12th-century stonemasonry and sculpture.[6] The church is in the outer courtyard of the motte-and-bailey castle. Norman masonry has been found in the motte, suggesting at least part was built in stone. Nothing of the castle's structure survives, but its location remains identifiable.

A typical early Norman defence work which is one of many along the Welsh Marches, it is thought to have been built in the reign of Henry I of England (1100–35) or King Stephen (1135–54) and was demolished or destroyed by the late 14th century, but why and how is not known (possibly during the rebellion of Owain Glyndŵr).[7]

15th-century ledger stone in St Mary's inscribed with Lombardic script

The parish church is Norman, built in the 12th century. It is in an oval churchyard of Anglo-Saxon origin within the outer courtyard of a Norman motte-and-bailey castle. The exterior walls were restored in the Victorian era. Only the exterior stonework of the 13th-century west tower is original. Earlier the church had a crossing tower, but was it built from the soft local sandstone which became unsafe.[8][6]

Inside the church, both the four-bay north arcade and five-bay south arcade are Norman Romanesque, but their capitals have different decoration. The font is also Norman. The church has also a stained glass window made by Percy Bacon in 1908.[9]

Monuments in the church include a ledger stone from about 1420 with a rare example of Lombardic script that translates "Pray for the soul of our departed brother in Christ". Other monuments include three Mediæval stone figures. Cecilia Muchegros, who lived in the village and died in 1301, and Hawisia, who died in 1353 and whose figure is dressed in a long flowing robe, each have a dog at their feet. The third figure is of a priest, with an old body and a young head. It is not known who he was, but may have been the priest in the church in the early 14th century.

The west tower has a ring of six bells. Abraham I Rudhall of Gloucester cast five bells including the tenor in 1709 and the treble bell in 1718. The church has also a Sanctus bell cast by John Warner & Sons of Cripplegate, London in 1875.[10]

St Mary's is a Grade I listed building.[9]

The village is in the Christchurch and English Bicknor electoral ward. This ward centres on Christchurch but starts in the north at English Bicknor and includes Staunton Coleford in the southwest. The 2011 Census recorded the ward population as 1,520.[11]

• Currie, CRJ; Herbert, NM (eds.); Baggs, AP; Jurica, ARJ (1996). A History of the County of Gloucester. Victoria County History. Vol. V: Bledisloe Hundred, St. Briavels Hundred, The Forest of Dean. London: Oxford University Press for the Institute of Historical Research. pp. 101–117. ISBN 978-0197227879. {{cite book}}: |first2= has generic name (help)
• Verey, David (1970). Gloucestershire: The Vale and the Forest of Dean. The Buildings of England. Vol. 2. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. pp. 182–184.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to English Bicknor.

• The Parish of English Bicknor
• "English Bicknor". Genuki.