Adlestrop

Adlestrop (/ˈædəlstrɒp/; formerly Titlestrop or Edestrop) is a village and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It is recorded as Tedestrop in the Domesday Book. In the 2011 census, it had a population of 120.

Description

This small Gloucestershire village deep in the heart of the Cotswolds is renowned for its surrounding countryside and fine walks. Situated off the main A436 road between Stow-on-the-Wold and "The Greedy Goose" near Salford, Oxfordshire, it is a geographically isolated community, with the village post office near the church being the main source of provisions and physical communication. Adlestrop's cricket club plays at Adlestrop Park.^[1]

Literary associations

The novelist Jane Austen visited Adlestrop House, formerly the rectory, at least three times between 1794 and 1806, when the occupant was Rev. Thomas Leigh, her mother's cousin. She is thought to have drawn inspiration from the village and its surroundings for her novel Mansfield Park.^[2]

Adlestrop was immortalised by Edward Thomas's poem "Adlestrop", which was first published in 1917. The poem describes an uneventful journey that Thomas took on 24 June 1914 on the Oxford to Worcester express; the train made a scheduled^[3] stop at Adlestrop railway station. He did not alight from the train, but describes a moment of calm pause in which he hears "all the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire". The station closed in 1966; however, the village bus shelter contains the station sign and a bench that was originally on the platform. A plaque on the bench quotes Thomas’s poem. These are the only things that remain of the original station.^[4]

Adlestrop

Yes. I remember Adlestrop

The name, because one afternoon

Of heat, the express-train drew up there

Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.

No one left and no one came

On the bare platform. What I saw

Was Adlestrop—only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,

And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,

No whit less still and lonely fair

Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang

Close by, and round him, mistier,

Farther and farther, all the birds

Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire

Church bells

The five bells of the church of St. Mary were last all rung together in about 1975. The bells lay unrung completely until 2007, when two local couples wishing to marry asked for bells to be rung at their weddings. The bells are:

Treble (smallest bell), note F: cast in 1711 by Abraham Rudhall (Gloucester)
2nd bell, note E flat: cast in 1711 by Abraham Rudhall
3rd bell, note D: cast in 1711 by Abraham Rudhall
4th bell, note C: cast in 1711 by Abraham Rudhall
Tenor (largest bell), note B flat (but cracked and toneless): cast in 1838 by Thomas Mears (Gloucester).

The Adlestrop bells are hung in the traditional English fashion. Over the years, the bell-frame became time expired, as it suffered from dry rot and woodworm infestation. Even the four uncracked bells could be rung only very cautiously and were officially listed as "unringable". Following a successful appeal to re-hang the bells and make them fully ringable, the restored bells and frame were rung once again in May 2016.^[5]