Sheepway
| Portbury | |
|---|---|
 St Mary's Church, Portbury |
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 Portbury
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| Portbury shown within Somerset | |
| Population | 827 (2011) |
| OS grid reference | ST502748 |
| Unitary authority | |
| Ceremonial county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | BRISTOL |
| Postcode district | BS20 |
| Dialling code | 01275 |
| Police | Avon and Somerset |
| Fire | Avon |
| Ambulance | South Western |
| EU Parliament | South West England |
| UK Parliament | |
Portbury is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England within the Unitary Authority of North Somerset.The parish includes the hamlet of Sheepway which is situated on the moorland at the northern edge of the Gordano valley, between the Gordano services on the M5 motorway and Portishead, near the Royal Portbury Dock. The parish has a population of 827.
The Romans are known to have had a wharf or hard at Portbury, probably for shipbuilding, as the commander of the logistics port of Ad Sabrinam at Seamills was charged with supplying ships to carry troops and supplies to the legions across the Severn in South Wales. It was used for the export of lead and tin from mines on the Mendip Hills. Sheepway (Old English schip weg) - the port of Portbury - was probably in use in later, Saxon, times. The Marina dock in Portishead had a right-angled southern dogleg navigable down to Sheepway, giving the town its name - the "Port's headland".
Portbury is mentioned in the Exeter Domesday Book (Liber Exoniensis) and was given by William the Conqueror to his second favourite, Bishop Geoffrey de Mowbray of Coutances — the "battling bishop" - sword in one hand and crook in the other. (Favourite No. 1 was Bishop Odo of Bayeux, who was William's half-brother and was given the Sussex Godwin land around Bosham.) Bishop Geoffrey crowned Duke William as King of England in a two-and-a-half-hour ceremony in French at Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066; the English ceremony that followed took only 40 minutes. The manor had previously been held by the Godwin family, who were the most powerful family in the country. Godwin (d. 1053) was installed by King Cnut as the first Earl of Wessex; Harold, his son, was the loser at Hastings in 1066. His daughter Edith was queen to Edward the Confessor. So in Saxon times Portbury must have been an important place, but no pre-1066 record or trace exists. It first appears in written history in the Domesday Book in the Hundred of Portbury, a sub-division of the shire of Somerset. The Domesday Book states, "Godwin held it from the King": Godwin was Harold II's eldest son and also held the title of Sheriff of Somerset. From the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 1068 we know that Godwin returned from exile in Ireland with a small force "at the mouth of the River Avon", probably intent on recapture of the former manor, but was routed by Aolnoth, his father's 'Staller' (an adjutant position - now in Willam's employ). Aolnoth was killed in the confrontation, but his surviving family become the Berkeley dynasty - see below. There would have existed in Portbury itself a substantial manor house within defensive boundaries that would have held the court and storehouses for grain and weaponry. The village itself is small but in former times ruled over most of the Gordano valley and the remote satellite enclave of Hamgreen.
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