Ombersley

For the locality in Australia, see Ombersley, Victoria.

Ombersley is a village and civil parish in Wychavon district, in the county of Worcestershire, England. The parish includes the hamlet of Holt Fleet, where Telford's 1828 Holt Fleet Bridge crosses the River Severn. The 2011 census recorded a population of 2,360 for the parish.^[1]

Ombersley
The Kings Arms, Ombersley
Ombersley Location within Worcestershire
OS grid reference	SO844635
• London	103 miles
Civil parish	Ombersley
District	Wychavon
Shire county	Worcestershire
Region	West Midlands
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	DROITWICH
Postcode district	WR9
Dialling code	01905
Police	West Mercia
Fire	Hereford and Worcester
Ambulance	West Midlands
UK Parliament	Mid Worcestershire
List of places UK England Worcestershire 52°16′17″N 2°13′43″W / 52.271302°N 2.228711°W / 52.271302; -2.228711

History

See also: History of Worcestershire

The first known reference to the village^[2] was the granting of a Charter to Abbot Egwin, later Saint Egwin, of Evesham Abbey in 706 AD. This was the Charter of King Æthelweard of the Hwicce, which granted twelve cassates in Ombersley to the Benedictine Abbey at Evesham.^[3]

During the reign of William the Conqueror, the Domesday Book indicates the village was within an exclave of the ancient hundred of Fishborough in 1086 and remained the property of the Abbey of Evesham (Saint Mary).^[4] It remained the property of the abbey until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the early 16th century. By 1848 the village was within the parish of Ombersley (St. Ambrose), in the hundred of Oswaldslow.^[5]

Royal forest

Ombersley was part of a Royal forest until 1229. The forest gives the village its name.^[6]

Ombersley Court

Ombersley Court is traditional home of the Lords Sandys, many of whom are buried in the family mausoleum in the churchyard of St Andrew's parish church. When St Andrew's was built in its current form between 1825 and 1829, the chancel of the old church was adapted for use as mausoleum for the lords of the manor.^[7] The architect of the church was Thomas Rickman; the cost of building was £18,000 of which two-thirds was contributed by Mary Sandys, dowager Marchioness of Downshire.^[8] It is grade I listed. ^[9]

 

St Andrew's church

 

Churchyard of Saint Andrew's church

Governance

Since 1973 there has been a combined parish council for Ombersley and Doverdale. The parish council website, as of April 2022^[update], states that "combining of the Parishes of Ombersley and Doverdale in 1973 created one of the largest parishes in Worcestershire",^[10] and the Neighbourhood Development Plan refers (eg page 5) to "the parish of Ombersley and Doverdale",^[11] but other sources - Office for National Statistics, Ordnance Survey, MapIt,^[12]NHLE^[13] - indicate that the two parishes still exist as separate entities.

Ombersley is in Wychavon district of the county of Worcestershire, and in the parliamentary constituency of Mid Worcestershire

Geography

Ombersley is 6 miles north of Worcester, 4 miles west of Droitwich, and 10 miles south of Kidderminster on the intersection of the A449 & A4133. The western boundary of the parish is the River Severn; to the east, Hadley Brook forms much of the boundary with the parish of Doverdale in the east, and the River Salwarpe, to the north of the Droitwich Canal, forms the southern boundary before it joins the Severn.

Listed buildings

As of April 2022^[update] there are 151 listed buildings in the parish. Ombersley Court is grade I listed, five buildings are grade II* listed and 145 are at grade II.^[14]

Notes

1. UK Census (2011). "Local Area Report – Ombersley Parish (E04010421)". Nomis. Office for National Statistics.
2. Article about Ombersley, The Birmingham Post (May 2006)
3. University of London & History of Parliament Trust (2003–2007). "Houses of Benedictine monks - Abbey of Evesham". British History Online. Retrieved 1 April 2007.
4. Open Domesday Online: Ombersley, accessed November 2017.
5. A Topographical Dictionary of England. Originally published by S Lewis, London, 1848. Pages 476-79.
6. "Parishes: Ombersley | British History Online". www.british-history.ac.uk. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
7. Sandys Mausoleum
8. Goodall, John (2015). Parish Church Treasures. London: Bloomsbury; p. 248
9. Historic England. "Ombersley Court (1172877)". National Heritage List for England.
10. "About Us - Ombersley & Doverdale Parish Council". www.odpc.co.uk. Retrieved 25 April 2022.
11. Ombersley and Doverdale Neighbourhood Development Plan 2020-2030: Adopted version. DJN Planning Limited for Ombersley and Doverdale Parish Council. October 2021.
12. "MapIt : map postcodes and geographical points to administrative areas". mapit.mysociety.org. Retrieved 25 April 2022. Compare searches for WR9 0DS and WR9 0QB
13. Compare Historic England. "Ombersley Court (1172877)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 25 April 2022. Parish: Ombersley and Historic England. "Doverdale Manor (1215111)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 25 April 2022. Parish: Doverdale
14. To view the full list, go to https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/advanced-search?searchType=nhleadvancedsearch and enter "Ombersley" as "Parish"

References and further reading

• 'Parishes: Ombersley', A History of the County of Worcester: volume 3 (1913), pp. 460-468.
• Staff. Wychavon District Council, June 2005

External links

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ombersley.

• Photos of Ombersley and surrounding area on geograph
• Saint Andrew's Church website
• Ombersley: historical and genealogical information at GENUKI.