Place:Mangotsfield, Gloucestershire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Family History Library Catalog

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Mangotsfield is a village in South Gloucestershire in Gloucestershire, England, situated north of the Bristol suburb of Kingswood, bounded to the north by the M4 motorway and to the east by the Emersons Green housing estate.

The village was mentioned in the Domesday Book in 1086 as Manegodesfelle. St James's Church was originally 13th century but was altered in 1812 by James Foster of Bristol and again in 1851 by Pope, Bindon and Clarke. Rodway Hill House is 16th century.

History

In the 1870s the Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales by John Marius Wilson said about Mangotsfield:

"MANGOTSFIELD, a village and a parish in the [registration] district of Keynsham and county of Gloucester. The village stands adjacent to the Bristol and Birmingham railway, 6 miles N E of Bristol; and has a station on the railway, and a post office under Bristol. The parish contains also Staplehill and Downend. Acres: 2,591. Real property: £9,975; of which £30 are in quarries, £500 in mines, and £65 in iron-works. Population in 1851: 3,967; in 1861: 4,222. Houses: 922. The property is much subdivided.

"There are numerous good residences. Pennant stone is worked in the N; and the coal tract of Kingswood adjoins the S. There was anciently a nunnery; and remains of it existed in the time of Leland. The living is a vicarage, united with the chapelry of Downend, in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol. Value: £251. Patron: the Rev. A. Peache. The church was mainly rebuilt in 1850: is in the pointed style; and consists of nave, N aisle, chantry, and chancel, with tower and spire. A chapel of ease, with 1,020 sittings, is at Downend. There are chapels for Independents, Baptists, and Wesleyans, two national schools, an infant school, and an Independent day school. A police station is at Staplehill."

Mangotsfield was an ancient parish. It was reduced in 1894 by the creation of Kingswood (near Bristol) parish, with the rest forming a parish in Warmley Rural District. In 1927 Mangotsfield Urban District was set up in part of the parish, the remainder becoming Mangotsfield Rural parish in Warmley Rural District.

In 1974 Mangotsfield UD and Warmley RD were merged with the Kingswood (near Bristol) Urban District to form Kingswood Borough in the new county of Avon. When Avon was abolished in 1996 Kingswood Borough was merged with Northavon in 1996 to form South Gloucestershire unitary district. Today Mangotsfield itself is unparished, and Mangotsfield Rural remains a civil parish.

Mangotsfield Rural has been heavily developed, and the principal development in the parish is known as Emersons Green. Mangotsfield village lost its first manor house in 1846 so that the churchyard might be enlarged, but its second medieval manor house - Rodway Hill House built in 1350 by William Blount - still stands on the edge of Rodway Common, its present façade dating from the 16th century. The only other house of distinction there is Mangotsfield House, once The Vicarage.

Mangotsfield was predominately a mining village, as there were small coal-pits scattered in the north from the village towards Blackhorse and Emerson’s Green, and also some in Staple Hill and Soundwell. A big pit nearby, Parkfield Colliery in the parish of Pucklechurch, provided employment for many Mangotsfield men who walked across the fields to work every day. Most of the villagers were poor folk, mainly employed as miners, agricultural labourers or quarrymen, before the farms disappeared, the coal-pits closed and the quarries were worked out, but not before they had provided enough attractive blue and red pennant sandstone for almost all the building in the parish before the 20th century. Former workmen’s cottages, still standing, have been “improved” by their better-off latter-day occupants.

Research Tips

• Original source material relating to Mangotsfield, and other parishes in Diocese of Bristol may be found at the Bristol Record Office.