Cliffords Mesne

Cliffords Mesne listen^ⓘ (Clifford's Mesne on some maps) is an English village in Gloucestershire, in Newent civil parish, two miles (3.2 km) south-west of the town. The village became the home of the autobiographical author Winifred Foley from the mid-1970s, after the success of her first book of Gloucestershire reminiscences, A Child in the Forest.^[1]

Cliffords Mesne Village Hall

Facilities

Cliffords Mesne possessed a public house, the Yew Tree Inn (now closed^[2]). The village is close to May Hill, which is owned by the National Trust, and to the now-closed-to-the-public^[3] International Centre for Birds of Prey.^[4] The village hall was refurbished in 2013 and holds regular social and musical events.^[5]

Heritage

St Peter's Church

The small Anglican church is dedicated to St Peter. Designed by E. S. Harris, it was built in 1882 of stone, with a central bellcote, a nave, a chancel, a south porch and a south vestry. It has contemporary stained glass dedicated to a local falconer and a memorial tablet to two local men who died on active service in the Second World War.^[6] The church parish is merged with Gorsley. It shares clergy with the benefice of Newent and lies in the Diocese of Gloucester.^[7]

An earlier stone church, built in Gothic style in 1872 and extended in 1877, became the village school, which is now closed.^[8] The building serves as a non-denominational village hall.^[9]

Two outlying buildings are Grade II listed: Ravenshill Farmhouse, north of the village, most of which dates from the late 17th and early 18th centuries;^[10] and an 18th-century cider house at Hay Farm, south-west of the village.^[11]

The combined population of Cliffords Mesne and Gorsley was 1320 in 1876.^[12]