North Nibley is a parish comprising of some 3430 acres, with (in 2020) a population of 938 people. The designation ‘North’ distinguishes it from two other villages of the same name, all three formerly in Gloucestershire.
It is roughly triangular in shape, and the apex penetrates deeply into the dissected part of the Cotswold plateau. Four miles to the west, the triangle’s base runs north to south for some three miles through the lush Vale of Berkeley. The Doverle brook, Nibley’s main watercourse, rises under the escarpment from two heads and traverses the parish from east to west, forming a part of the northern parish boundary. In its heyday this stream powered seven mills in the parish.
Nibley’s geology is Jurassic throughout. Lower Jurassic comprises of three Lias strata. Middle Lias clays and silts make up the marlstone platform on which the village stands. The clays of the low-lying Vale of Berkeley, at c. 30.5 metres OD, gave rise to an extensive area of many hectares of dense forest, mainly oak. Of this, some fragments remain at Michaelwood and Horwood to the south and south-east, but in the main it has been long cleared and produces excellent grass so that dairying and cattle predominate.
Moving eastwards and climbing steadily the marlstone platform is reached at c. 115 metres OD. Here the village stands, linked by the road B4060 with neighbouring settlements at Wotton under Edge and Stinchcombe. Porous limestone and sands overlie impermeable clays at this level, and water issues readily as springs or easily-dug wells.
Immediately above is a wide belt of Grade 4 land (Cotteswold Sands). Here cultivation was carried out on terraced steps rather than in a level field layout as on the marlstone, because of the sharpening gradient. The strip lynchets are a striking feature in Nibley and its neighbouring parishes.
The final ascent is steep and rises to c. 183 metres OD as the Cotswold plateau is reached. Where Cotteswold Sands give way to Inferior Oolite the woods begin. The natural cover was beech, some of which remains in places, but artificial replacement by conifers was gaining ground in the 1980s. This is poor land with a thin topsoil.
Nibley’s natural resources, dictated by geology and its resultant soils, have produced a clear agricultural division: pastoral farming in the lower-lying western part of the parish and arable in the remainder with a considerable belt of woodland outlining the eastern uplands. An industrial episode of some 200 years shared with other cloth-making parishes nearby proved, as in the case of Nibley, to be only an interruption in its long agricultural history.
North Nibley One-Place-Study 