Fawley, Berkshire
| Fawley | |
|---|---|
 Church of England parish church |
|
 Fawley
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| Fawley shown within Berkshire | |
| Area | 8.78 km2 (3.39 sq mi) |
| Population | 165 (2011 census) |
| • Density | 19/km2 (49/sq mi) |
| OS grid reference | SU4503 |
| Civil parish |
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| Unitary authority | |
| Ceremonial county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | WANTAGE |
| Postcode district | OX12 |
| Dialling code | 01488 |
| Police | Thames Valley |
| Fire | Royal Berkshire |
| Ambulance | South Central |
| EU Parliament | South East England |
| UK Parliament | |
Fawley is a village and civil parish in West Berkshire, England. The hub of the village is centred 3.5 miles (5.6 km) east of Lambourn and has a sub-community within its bounds, Little or South Fawley. It includes a depopulated small hill settlement of Whatcombe.
Fawley was the poor and depressed home of author Thomas Hardy's maternal grandmother – the main character in Jude the Obscure, stonemason Jude Fawley, lived in a fictional village Marygreen, and a relative, one of his biographers, links the memories of this woman to the book's bleak start.
The area is wholly on part of the escarpment of the tallest uplands in the county which cross into South-West Oxfordshire, the Berkshire or Lambourn Downs. The nucleus of the village is "Great Fawley" or "North Fawley" with the other settled place being South Fawley or Little Fawley, in the parish, 0.6 miles (1.0 km) further south. The Ridgeway, an 87-mile path, passes in the neighbouring parish to the north. In the south of the parish is a slight peak of the downs, where there is accordingly a trig point (triangulation station) to measure the surrounding landscape. Most of the land to the west including Lambourn has only north-south public roads with the land which is made up with high fields, commons and small woods in between accessible by bridleways and footpaths.
Some Roman graves were discovered in April 1883 on a hill between North and South Fawley.
The area formerly contained a rural area known as the liberty of Whatcombe. This briefly in medieval records appeared as an ecclesiastical parish of its own and to have had a church in the time of Henry II who confirmed its appropriation to Hurley Priory.
The (north) manor and combined rectory belonged to the nunnery of Ambresbury (dissolved 1177, also known as Amesbury Abbey) followed by the nuns of Fontevrault Abbey, France before the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The ecclesiastical parish of Fawley once had its own benefice, which following appropriation (which took place before 1086) became a vicarage however its need for its own minister ceased and the area's Church of England priest today is the rector of Great Shefford ministering to the rural benefice of West Downland. Its patrons were in 1870 Mr. and Mrs. Wroughton.
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Wikipedia