Willersey.com

The roughly 1200 acres of the parish of Willersey has been inhabited and farmed for thousands of years. Iron Age works can still be seen adjacent to the Broadway Golf Club car park while 4th century Romano-British remains (now in the British and Cirencester Museums) have been found in Willersey itself. The Roman 'Buckle Street' ran through Saintbury and along the top of Willersey Hill and many fields in Willersey retain their Saxon field names.

In the Doomsday Book of 1086, Willersey was recorded as comprising "8 hides (very roughly 800 acres) with 3 ploughs and 16 villagers, 4 smallholders and a priest with 6 ploughs, 2 slaves and a little meadow." Many of the fields on the lower slopes of the hill show the signs of medieval 'ridge and furrow' drainage systems while the production of wool has been the source of wealth in the Cotswolds for centuries.

Willersey, with its many various spellings in ancient documents, was thus well established a thousand years ago and it continued to grow up around the Church of St Peter's, which itself has a Norman doorway. The church was once the property of the Abbot of Evesham and the present Manor House was one of the Abbot's summer residences and the site of one of his barns. When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in 1538, the lands of Evesham Abbey were awarded to Henry's supporters and, for the next 150 years, occasional religious strife afflicted Willersey's church,its rectors and villagers.

Many of the existing village houses can be traced back to the Georgian times or earlier so were occupied by the time of enclosure act of 1767 which itself changed the way fields were farmed. Traditional strip farming was replaced by the award of the village lands to landowners who fenced the fields and increased agricultural production to mutual benefit of owners, farmers, labourers and their families.

In 1844 the village school was erected at the expense of Earl Harrowby, who owned land bordering Campden Lane whilst St Peter's Church was re-roofed and otherwise 'improved' by the Victorians. Nonconformist meeting houses had been in use since the end of 17th century and so a pair of cottages on the Broadway road were converted to form the present day Methodist Church.

A central feature of Willersey life remained the annual 'Willersey Wake', traditionally held around 24th June, and celebrated by the villagers and many visitors to the host of side shows and stalls set up on the village greens.

Through Queen Victoria's reign, Willersey's population remained fairly static at around 370 but it grew slowly in the early 20th century and more rapidly after World War II in 1945. When the railway arrived at Honeybourne in the 1860's, villagers would walk the 3 miles to the station so it was possible to both travel more easily and to send produce to distant markets. The encouraged development of market gardening in and around Willersey so that, by the 1901 census, the parish had 12 farms and 20 market gardens while 26 men were recorded as agricultural labourers.

The railway halt at Willersey (opened in 1904 on the New Stratford to Cheltenham line but closed in 1965), together with 20th century road improvements, further encouraged the production of fruit and vegetables. But two world wars took their toll on the Willersey men, 18 of whom died on active service 1914 - 1919. Their names are recorded on the village war memorial, to which were added the names of the four men who died in active service during World War II.

In the years following both wars, additional housing was built in and around the village so the population further increased.

The first Willersey village hall, erected in 1923 from an old wartime building, was replaced with the present hall in 1968, while the village Recreation Ground was opened in 1934. Fortunately the look of the village has been conserved as the broad village green remains intact and the majority of the new housing, like the Industrial Estate opened off Badsey Lane in the 1980's, was built well away from the main road. The village duck-pond for many years drinking water for horses and other animals , has recently been renovated, but, on the other side of the Main Street, the blacksmith's shop was demolished in 1920 and the Jubilee Tree now stands on the site. With its many listed Cotswold stone houses, its school, Post Office, garage,two shops and two inns Willersey continues to thrive and the the population continues to grow.


Historical Pictures & Famous People in Willersey Page Coming Soon.