Prestbury, Gloucestershire
Encyclopedia
Prestbury is a medium sized village
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 near the edge of the Cotswolds
Cotswolds
The Cotswolds are a range of hills in west-central England, sometimes called the Heart of England, an area across and long. The area has been designated as the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty...

. It is on the outskirts of the larger town, Cheltenham
Cheltenham
Cheltenham , also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a large spa town and borough in Gloucestershire, on the edge of the Cotswolds in the South-West region of England. It is the home of the flagship race of British steeplechase horse racing, the Gold Cup, the main event of the Cheltenham Festival held...

, and forms part of the borough of Cheltenham, despite retaining its own parish council as a civil parish
Civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation and, where they are found, the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties...

. It is part of the Tewkesbury parliamentary constituency
Tewkesbury (UK Parliament constituency)
Tewkesbury is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election....

, represented by Laurence Robertson
Laurence Robertson
Laurence Anthony Robertson is a British Conservative Party politician. He has been the Member of Parliament for Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire since 1997...

 MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 of the Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

. It gives residents and visitors alike the opportunity to go to a more urban centre of shopping and recreation, or enjoy the surrounding countryside.

Retail

The village has several shops including the Prestbury Village Stores and the Burgage Stores. There is a doctor's surgery, a post office and a public library with internet access and DVDs for hire. There is a carvery called the King's Arms, which used to be the village's main pub. It was here that the celebrated 19th century jockey Fred Archer grew up, as his father was a landlord of the pub. There are three other pubs in Prestbury; the Plough, the Beehive and the Royal Oak. There are also two hairdressers and a bank, as well as a pharmacy and a butcher.

Prestbury Racecourse

The village is also home to Prestbury Park, the Cheltenham Racecourse
Cheltenham Racecourse
Cheltenham Racecourse is a racecourse for horse racing events, located at Prestbury Park, in the suburban village of Prestbury on the outskirts of the English town of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire...

, which holds the world famous Gold Cup
Cheltenham Gold Cup
The Cheltenham Gold Cup is a Grade 1 National Hunt chase in the United Kingdom which is open to horses aged five years or older. It is run on the New Course at Cheltenham over a distance of about 3 miles and 2½ furlongs , and during its running there are twenty-two fences to be jumped...

 race each March.
Racehorse trainers Frenchy Nicholson and his son David Nicholson
David Nicholson (horse racing)
David Nicholson was a British National Hunt jockey and trainer. He was British jump racing Champion Trainer in the 1993-94 and 1994-95 seasons....

 had stables in Prestbury. Notable apprentices of his include Pat Eddery
Pat Eddery
Patrick James John "Pat" Eddery is a former flat racing jockey. Pat's father Jimmy Eddery was a jockey, as is his brother Paul Eddery.-Career:...

, Walter Swinburn
Walter Swinburn
Walter R. Swinburn is a retired flat racing jockey who competed in Great Britain and Ireland as well as internationally.Swinburn was born in Oxford...

 and Mouse Morris
Mouse Morris
Michael 'Mouse' Morris is an Irish racehorse trainer and former jockey.As a jockey he rode Skymas to win the Queen Mother Champion Chase in 1976 and 1977 and Billycan to win the 1977 Irish Grand National, while his most notable successes as a trainer have come with Buck House in the 1983 Supreme...

 (2006 Cheltenham Gold Cup Winning Trainer with War of Attrition).

History

The name of the village means "Priests fortified place", from Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon may refer to:* Anglo-Saxons, a group that invaded Britain** Old English, their language** Anglo-Saxon England, their history, one of various ships* White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, an ethnicity* Anglo-Saxon economy, modern macroeconomic term...

 preost and burh, possibly from a fortified manor house belonging to the Bishop of Hereford
Bishop of Hereford
The Bishop of Hereford is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Hereford in the Province of Canterbury.The see is in the City of Hereford where the seat is located at the Cathedral Church of Saint Mary and Saint Ethelbert which was founded as a cathedral in 676.The Bishop's residence is...

 in the 13th century. The settlement is mentioned as Preosdabyrig in 899-904. It Prestbury appears in the Doomsday Book of 1086 as Presteberie, part of the property of the church of Hereford
Hereford
Hereford is a cathedral city, civil parish and county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, southwest of Worcester, and northwest of Gloucester...

, with residents as 18 villagers, five smallholders, a priest, a riding man and 11 slaves. By the 13th century it had become Presbery. In 1249 the Bishop of Hereford was granted permission to hold a weekly market along with a three-day annual fair in August.

The village became eclipsed by Cheltenham following the end of the medieval period. The market started to decline in the 15th century and had lapsed completely by the start of the 18th century, In the middle of the 18th century a mineral spring was discovered in the parish, and by 1751 a local landowner, Lord Craven, had a business providing bathing and lodging. However it did not last past the end of the century.
The Prestbury War Memorial
War memorial
A war memorial is a building, monument, statue or other edifice to celebrate a war or victory, or to commemorate those who died or were injured in war.-Historic usage:...

 is a Cotswold stone
Cotswold stone
Cotswold stone is a yellow oolitic limestone quarried in many places in the Cotswold Hills in the south midlands of England. When weathered, the colour of buildings made or faced with this stone is often described as 'honey' or 'golden'....

 gothic revival column with six engraved panels commemorating the villagers who died in the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 (1914-18). The memorial was severely damaged in October 2011 in an act of vandalism
Vandalism
Vandalism is the behaviour attributed originally to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...

 when the column was toppled to the ground and smashed.

There are claims that Prestbury is the most haunted
Apparitional experience
In psychology and parapsychology, an apparitional experience is an anomalous, quasi-perceptual experience.It is characterized by the apparent perception of either a living being or an inanimate object without there being any material stimulus for such a perception...

village in England, and one of the most haunted in Britain.

External links

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