Until Nibley is first named in a late Saxon charter of AD 940, clues to its ecclesiastical and economic organisation must be derived from the general area history. However, ample evidence for settlement and land-use is provided by an abundance of Saxon place- and field-names which survive today.
After the Battle of Dyrham in AD 577, Gloucestershire, east of the Severn came under Saxon domination. At first it formed part of the sub-kingdom of Hwicce, an area which later became the diocese of Worcester. They were later absorbed by Mercia and lost their identity. A tradition of continued British Christianity among the Hwicce is unproven, and the converted Mercians are more likely to have been the founders of the double monastery at Berkeley. No foundation date is known but it was certainly flourishing by AD 778 when Tilhere, Abbot of Berkeley, became Bishop of Worcester Abbey. Abbot Ethelhun, another Abbot of Berkeley, achieved the same office in AD 915.
This must be the minster church from which stemmed daughter establishments in the neighbourhood. Nibley church is sited on a commanding spur overlooking the Vale of Berkeley towards the vanished monastery, equidistant from the Roman villa and the Iron Age hill-fort, this may be coincidental, but the nature of the site itself is most significant.
House platforms on the western side of the church denote former settlement, and the ‘enclos paroissal’ appearance of the church, chantry, house, vicarage and vestry within the raised surrounding churchyard and its wall is highly suggestive of a mission establishment. This would obviously post-date the settlement it was to serve, so that Nibley’s origin may perhaps be sought within the date-range AD 577-778. By AD 940 there is no longer any doubt of its existence.
The lands belonging to Berkeley minster are now difficult to determine with certainty, apart from those mentioned at Stoke Bishop and Shirehampton in an exchange charter of AD 883. It seems certain that its lands and daughter churches formed the unit later known as Berkeley Hernesse: OE (ge)herness, ‘a district obedient to a single jurisdiction’ 1 . This land block continued intact, later becoming the Hundred of Berkeley. The minster’s lands were back in King Edward’s hands before the Conquest, having been secularised by Earl Godwin in 1043 under dubious circumstances and its lands confiscated by him for the short period until his disgrace and banishment. The 1846 Tithe Map shows a detached portion of Nibley parish consisting of two pastures, Great and Little Goodwins Leaze, which still carried a charge of £10 for the ‘Poore of Wotton’. Could this be some unrecorded restitution for Earl Godwin’s despolation of the minster?
The Saxon Charter AD 940
GB Grundy (1935-6)2 identified Wodetun, named in a charter of AD 940, as Wotton under Edge. In it King Edmund granted 4 hides of land for 3 lives to his thegn Edric. In describing its western and northern boundaries, which coincide with parts of Nibley’s modern parish boundary, landmarks are mentioned, many of which are clearly identifiable today. However, fieldwork suggests that some alternative interpretations to those of Grundy utilise more extant Saxon field names and knit the probable settlement sequence more credibly into the landscape.
Grundy interprets ‘Hnibban Lege’ and ‘Nybban Beorg’ as personal name Hnibba plus Lea and Barrow respectively. Ekwall3 gives OE hynbba ‘nib, point or beak’ and AH Smith (1964) follows this, an explanation most suitable for the terrain. ‘Beorg’ can mean a natural hill as well as a prehistoric barrow (Gelling 1978), no trace of which has yet been found despite assiduous search by many fieldworkers, and Saxon barrows are not found west of Hampshire. Similarly, topography explains the other two Nibley place-names, whilst three separate Hnibba personal names seem improbable. As topographical names are now believed to be early, the above derivation, if correct, strongly points to settlement here in the Saxon period.
Saxon Charter Clauses 4-14 (translation from OE)
4. Then so along stream to Ballestran till it comes to Hunters Ford.
5. Then from the Ford to Hwingle’s Bourne.
6. Then up along stream so up to the Great Spring.
Named Aewylme in the original, this pool was still evident in Joyce Popplewell’s time
7. Then so to the Old (Bracken) Way till it comes to Hnibba’s Lea.
An alternative is the Old Broken Way, probably an elready much-used path from Great Spring to Clearing near the Peak. The latter is interpreted as the future Churchend and its nearby early fields.
8. So over the Lea and then (?) over Nybba’s Barrow eastwards to the track.
9. Along the track to the Slade of the Roedeer.
The Slade of the Roedeer represented by no less than 4 Slade field names at Forthay, between the Clearing and the Doverle brook.
10. Then to Water Lane.
To the Doverle brook, passing future Forthay and Millend.
11. Along Water Lane to the middle of the Combe of the Alder Trees.
Athercombe SE of Millend must derive from this.
12. Along the Combe to (?) Strangers’ Springs to the Made Way.
There is a possibily that ‘Wraeccena’ mentioned here could have become ‘Breakheart’ in a phonological progression. The track up Breakheart Hill passes a series of obvious springs, meeting the Made Way – which is the Roman Road.
13. Along the Made Way to Albert’s Tree.
14. As the hillfoot divides to at (?) Turla’s enclosure to the Little Pole till it comes to the Ridge Hide.
13 and 14 employ destructible landmarks; Turla’s enclosure could be Dingle Farm which is at the foot of a dividing hill whereas Ridge Farm is not. The final landmark ‘Ridge Hide’ (Ric Hide in OE) must be the Ridge area of Wotton under Edge parish, and heading in this direction from the ‘Made Way’ can be seen a very substantial hedge-topped bank, here forming part of Nibley’s modern parish boundery. It was hoped that this hedgerow would provide a species count of about 10 woody species, to substantiate its Saxon origin, but disappointingly several 30 yard lengths produced only 3 or 4 species. Possibly replanting accounts for this, for elsewhere in the parish counts of 7-9 species have been made, and Spindle tree, often an indicator of surviving Saxon hedgerows, has been found on a woodland margin.
It will be seen that the position of the clearing, Hnibban Lege, is a major stumbling block. Grundy places it within Westridge Wood, but there is no supporting evidence of pottery or earthworks for this and no reference appears in the charter to the hill-fort there, which would have been an even more conspicuous landmark than it is today. It seems unlikely that this inhospitable plateau of inferior fertility and lacking water would be preferred to the lower, good quality soils on which are found a string of hamlets with Saxon names, the early fields and ample water supplies.
The relevant portion of the charter starts with clause 4 naming Huntingford appropriately lying within Michaelwood Chase (OE micel wudu: ‘the great wood’) which originally stretched from its present reduced area up to the foot of the escarpment.
Place and Field Names
Nibley’s oldest surviving name is that of its main watercourse, the Doverle brook. This is Celtic, deriving from Brit. ‘dubro’ water, equivalent to Welsh ‘dwfr’. It became ‘Dofer Lan’ in the Saxon charter and finally Doverle. Some OS maps mispell this as Doverte.
Many Saxon names are found in the 1846 Tithe Map, not only testifying to the Saxon presence and to the landscape as they found it but also providing information about thei clearances and subsequent use of the land. Basic requirements of arable, pasture and meadow, woods and waste, and the necessary livestock are all to be found in the field names even though names are known to change over the years. Saxon place-names in Nibley underline the distinctive pattern of dispersed settlement which is later confirmed in written sources. Place- and field- names considered together with the topography suggest that clearance took place in three phases. No conclusions as to dates can be drawn from these names except that they were pre-Conquest, and if the ‘wick’ and ‘weekley/wickley’ names do in fact reflect continuity of occupation there, a pre-Saxon date is implied.
Frontiers of Clearance
The earliest settlements along the marlstone platform and their connecting path, i.e. ‘the old broken way’ linking Bournstream, Southend, Churchend and Wooderlin (these latter two forming Nibley village today) and rounding the base of Nibley Knoll to Forthay.
There was also a frontier along the base of the marlstone platform at 30m OD, linking Nibley Green (which would develop with or soon after the Churchend settlement) and Daisy and Bradley Green.
Both of these ran out beyond the future parish confines, and later became important lines of communication between Berkeley and Wotton under Edge.
A north-to-south series of evenly-spaced and similarly-sized farms just inside today’s western parish boundary. These farms are within 2 km of Michaelwood’s remaining hectares today. All except Bury Hill, its origin possibly pre-Saxon, are on east-west trackways into the forest and they do not share a link-road: the frontier is formed in this case by their field boundaries.
1 A H Smith The Place-Names of Gloucestershire Parts 2 & 4 (1964)
2 GB Grundy Saxon Charters of Gloucestershire TGBAS (1935-6). Hockaday Abstracts. Gloucester City Library.
3 E Ekwall The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names (1960)
North Nibley One-Place-Study 