Amberley, Gloucestershire

The Old Lodge (also known as Old Lodge Inn) is a Grade II listed building in Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire, England. It stands in the centre of Minchinhampton Common. The building dates to the mid-to-late 17th century, originally built as a hunting lodge, and was enlarged around a century later when it became an inn. It is constructed of limestone rubble, with ashlar chimneys and a stone slate roof. It is two storeys with an attic; it was extended to the south. The original 17th-century frontage is on the northern side, obscured by a late-19th-century wing addition with an east-facing gable. It became the clubhouse for the adjacent golf course in 1895. Minchinhampton Commons Golf Club had been formed six years earlier. Some sources claim the building was originally the home of the Common's warrener, who oversaw artificial medieval rabbit warrens. Another states that Charles I played lawn bowls at the lodge when he was passing through in 1643, on his way to the siege of Gloucester. The bowling enclosure has been dated to 1788, however. Until the foot-and-mouth epidemic of 2001, the Lodge was the venue for Marking Day, on which animals had their ears tagged before being allowed to graze on the common. Post-epidemic requirements are that animals are now marked at their home farm.

Neu-Lindsey Nature Reserve (grid reference SO845014) is a 0.4-hectare (0.99-acre) nature reserve in Gloucestershire. The site is listed in the ‘Stroud District’ Local Plan, adopted November 2005, Appendix 6 (online for download) as a Key Wildlife Site (KWS).The site is owned and managed by the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust since 1986. It was donated by Mrs T Lindsey.

Minchinhampton Common (grid reference SO855010) is a 182.7-hectare (451-acre) biological and geological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Gloucestershire, notified in 1972.The site is owned and managed by the National Trust. The common is one of the largest grassland commons in the Cotswold area. It is south of Rodborough Common SSSI. Both commons are on Jurassic limestone and are a central plateau with steep sides. They drop down to the Nailsworth valley on the west side and the Frome valley on the north side. The site designation includes the outlying areas of Iron Mills and Littleworth Commons. Neu-Lindsey Nature Reserve adjoins the western edge of Minchinhampton Common.Minchinhampton Common is of both geological and biological importance. There are disused quarries near the centre which provide fossil evidence for research purposes. It is unimproved, herb-rich grassland. There are five units of assessmentThe limestone Longstone of Minchinhampton is supposedly the burial site of a Danish leader.

Nailsworth railway station served the town of Nailsworth in Gloucestershire, England and was the terminus of the 9.3 km-long Stonehouse and Nailsworth Railway, later part of the Midland Railway. The railway was built to meet local demand for a connection to the UK national railway network and was opened in 1867. The Nailsworth railway promoters were ambitious, and sited the station on an embankment above the town with the intention that the railway would be extended southwards towards Tetbury and Malmesbury. The station consisted of a large Cotswold stone building, with several rooms, and it also acted as the railway company's headquarters. There was also a large goods yard, and a month after the railway opened, Nailsworth's first market was held.Thoughts of prosperity and expansion proved fleeting, however, and the railway company was subsumed very quickly into the Midland Railway, into whose main Bristol to Gloucester main line the branch line linked at Stonehouse. Nailsworth remained the terminus station for the branch line, and there were fewer than 10 trains a day in each direction on the line in 1910.The Stonehouse and Nailsworth Railway, along with the rest of the Midland Railway, became part of the London Midland and Scottish Railway at the 1923 Grouping. Passenger services were suspended on the line as an economy measure to save fuel in June 1947, and were officially withdrawn from 8 June 1949. However, Nailsworth's goods yard remained open for goods traffic until 1966, and the station buildings and goods yard structures are still standing, the former in private residential use.

Egypt Mill is a Grade II* listed building and a former mill located in Nailsworth, a market town within the Stroud district of Gloucestershire, England. The oldest parts of the building date from the 14th century, but the majority dates from the 16th century. Haberdasher George Hudson bought the property in 1656. Two decades later, in 1675, Hudson and his partner Henry Willoughby leased the mill to clothier Richard Webb. The building remained in the hands of the Webb family until 1832, when it was sold to Playne & Smith. It is known as Egypt Mill because Nathan Webb was such a slavedriver that the mill workers nicknamed him Pharaoh, and said they might as well be slaves in Egypt. Peter Playne had previously been the tenant. Late in the 19th century it became a dyeworks and later was used for grinding corn and animal feed and was run by G.H. King & Sons. King restored the name "Egypt Mill", liking the idea of being "King of Egypt". Egypt Mill has been a restaurant, hotel and event venue since the 1980s.

Box is a small village in Gloucestershire, England. It is in the civil parish of Minchinhampton, and is located 3 miles (4.8 km) south of Stroud and 10 miles (16 km) west of Cirencester. Minchinhampton is about 1 mile (1.6 km) away and Nailsworth is about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) away. Box has a population of about 400. Box lies at the edge of Minchinhampton Common, designated as a SSSI. The common is used for the grazing of cattle, and the absence of a cattle grid at the entrance to the village means cows are able to wander through its streets. The village holds annual produce show, pantomime and open garden events.

Nailsworth is a town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England, lying in one of the Stroud Valleys in the Cotswolds, on the A46 road (the Roman Fosse Way), 3.5 miles (5.6 km) south of Stroud and about 25 miles (40 km) north-east of Bristol and Bath. The parish had a population of 5,794 at the 2011 census.

Whitstone was an ancient hundred of Gloucestershire, England. From the 13th century it comprised two adjacent divisions, which included the ancient parishes of: Lower DivisionEastington Frampton-on-Severn Frocester King's Stanley Leonard Stanley Stonehouse Wheatenhurst (now Whitminster)Upper DivisionFretherne Hardwicke Haresfield Longney Moreton Valence Randwick Saul Standish Quedgeley (part)The hundred existed at the time of the Domesday Book in 1086, but covering a smaller area. By 1220 the adjacent Blacklow hundred had been absorbed. Blachelaue in the Domesday Book contained the parishes of Alkerton (now Eastington), Frampton (-on-Severn), Frocester, (Kings) Stanley, (Leonard) Stanley, Stonehouse, Wheatenhurst, and Fretherne.The ancient meeting place of the hundred was probably at Whitestones Field in the parish of Hardwicke, although meetings were later held at Quedgeley, Stonehouse, Wheatenhurst and Frampton.

Woodchester railway station served the villages of Woodchester and Amberley in Gloucestershire, England. It was on the 9.3 km-long Stonehouse and Nailsworth Railway, later part of the Midland Railway. The station opened six months after the railway and its other stations, on 1 July 1867. The delay was allegedly due to resistance from objectors who thought the provision of a station might encourage attendance at a nearby Catholic chapel. When the station was provided, it was given scruffy wooden buildings, unlike the substantial stone-built stations elsewhere on the line, a sign of the influence of the Midland Railway and the financial problems of the Stonehouse and Nailsworth Railway. Woodchester was a busy station with tourists visiting Amberley, which was identified with "Enderley" in the novel John Halifax, Gentleman. It also had a large volume of goods traffic. The Stonehouse and Nailsworth Railway, along with the rest of the Midland Railway, became part of the London Midland and Scottish Railway at the 1923 Grouping. Passenger services were suspended on the line as an economy measure to save fuel in June 1947, and were officially withdrawn from 8 June 1949. Woodchester remained open for goods traffic until 1964. The line itself closed for goods traffic in 1966. The station buildings at Woodchester have all been demolished, though the station-master's house remains and the line of the track is used as a pedestrian and cycle path between Dudbridge and Nailsworth.

A former Convent of Poor Clares is located in Woodchester, near Stroud in Gloucestershire. The convent was home to nuns of the Poor Clares order from 1850 to 2011.The convent is based around a 17th-century house that was enlarged in the 1850s. The dedicated convent buildings were built between 1861 and 1869 by Charles Francis Hansom. A separate guest house was built around 1870 by Canon Scoles.The convent is Grade II listed on the National Heritage List for England. The convent originally belonged to a Franciscan order before its adoption by the Poor Clares.Five sisters of the Poor Clares order remained at the convent's dissolution; they subsequently moved to a Poor Clares convent in Lynton, North Devon.Poor Clares exiled from France in 1904 joined Franciscan nuns at Woodchester. The convent at Woodchester was built in the 1860s; at its zenith, the convent housed 30 nuns after the Second World War, but it had declined to 12 mostly elderly nuns by 1998.Duff Hart-Davis visited the convent for a 1998 article in The Independent on Sunday and met the Mother Abbess, Sister Mary Anthony, and a Sister Mary Therese. Hart-Davis reported that the nuns' primary source of income was the production of altar breads, of which they made five million a year, earning them £25,000. The nuns also had a vegetable garden and an orchard and kept bees, cows, and chickens. Hart-Davis also wrote about the nuns' Christmas celebrations and reported that they did not have a television, but borrowed one for Christmas and Easter.The Poor Clares donated their library from the Woodchester convent to Durham University Library. Durham's holdings comprise 485 titles from the Woodchester Convent, dating from the 16th to the 19th century, with the majority of books from the Poor Clares convent in Princehof near Bruges. The books are mostly devotional in nature.Since the convent's closure, the buildings have been used as a boutique hotel, restaurant and live music venue.

Woodchester is a Gloucestershire village in the Nailsworth (or Woodchester) Valley, a valley in the South Cotswolds in England, running southwards from Stroud along the A46 road to Nailsworth. The parish population taken at the 2011 census was 1,206.Woodchester is approximately at the midpoint between Stroud and Nailsworth, about two miles south of Stroud. It is divided into North and South Woodchester, with a side valley between the two settlements. There are pubs in both North and South (The Royal Oak in North and The Ram in South) and a post office with a shop in North Woodchester. There was a post office (called Woodchester) in South Woodchester but it closed, along with the shop, in June 2008. Woodchester is notable as the location of Woodchester Roman Villa. The village's parish church of St Mary's was designed by Samuel Sanders Teulon. The nearby Woodchester Mansion is regularly open to the public and stands in a landscaped valley. This valley is now owned by the National Trust and is open daily. There are three waymarked walks. The car park is at Nympsfield near Coaley Peak, not at Woodchester as some visitors suppose. Education is provided by the Woodchester Endowed C of E Primary School under Headteacher Mrs Pennington, which serves around 135 pupils. Following the Ofsted inspection in 2018, the school was rated Outstanding, point four on a four-point scale. The school has secured the Healthy Schools award.The former Convent of Poor Clares was home to nuns of the Poor Clares order from 1850 to 2011.

Nailsworth Town Hall is a municipal building in Old Bristol Road in Nailsworth, Gloucestershire, England. The structure currently operates as the meeting place of Nailsworth Town Council as well as a community events venue.