The following information is edited from a history of the Church of Ampney St Mary, also known as ‘The Ivy Church’, compiled by Michael Champion, a resident of Ampney St Mary who died in 1994. His research included the Domesday Book, Gloucestershire Records Office, Bingham Library, old maps and conversations with local people who had been living in the area for around seventy years. The research extends beyond the Church to the village itself with many references to surrounding villages. The following facts and figures relate to the village. Information about the Church can be found here.
Ampney St Mary or Ashbrook? References to Ashbrook can be found in local maps and in the names of a few houses in Ampney St Mary. There is an Ashbrook Lane which starts in the neighbouring village of Poulton, at Bell Lane, and carries on west, through the centre of Ampney St Mary, meeting Riding Lane, the road which separates Ampney St Mary from Ampney Crucis.
In the Domesday Book, Ashbrook was the land of Durand of Gloucester who became Sheriff of Gloucestershire and refers to Ampney St Mary as the land of Reninbald (or Reginbald) the Priest who became the first Chancellor of England. As well as ‘Ashbrook’, the name Eastbrook also appears in old papers. The following is an extract from Historical, Monumental and Genealogical Collections Relative to the County of Gloucester, from the Original Papers of Ralph Bigland Garter Principal King of Arms, 1791: this parish lies in the hundred of Crowthorne and Minety and deanery of Cirencester, about three miles east from Cirencester and twenty one miles south east from Gloucester. It consists of rather more arable than of pasture and meadow land, and the soil is chiefly a strong clay. The common fields were enclosed at the same time as those of Ampney Crucis.
Why the name Ampney? It is probably derived from the word ‘amnis’, an old word for a vigorous stream. The Ampney Brook, a tributary of the Thames, runs close to the Ampney St Mary Church. The village of Ampney St Mary was on the south side of Ampney Brook, near the Ampney St Mary church but when the church was abandoned during the Black Death plague, 1348 -1349, the villagers resettled to higher ground, away from the Ampney Brook, possibly to the area around Dudley Farm (now a small group of houses in Ampney Crucis, by Riding Lane). The Black Death came during the recurrent wars with France and Scotland (1327-1377), both of which having a considerable impact on the economy and the population: taxes had been increased to fund the wars, and deaths among clergy were so widespread that many churches were left with no replacement clergy.
A record of the Ampney Park Estate dated 1767 listing its land and holdings has a map showing the Turnpike Road, which looped south of the Church where the entrance faces. It was estimated to have been constructed in the early 18th century to bypass a wide ford at the foot of School Lane in Ampney Crucis, where Ford Farm is now. Much later the road was switched to where the A417 Fairford to Cirencester road now runs, north of the Church. A nearby old mill race became a bathing hole for local children from Ampney villages, but the hole was removed by the Water Authority in the early 1980s.
To the north east of Ampney St Mary before the movement of the village, was Ampney St Peter: St Peter’s name changed to Eastington and old maps describe it as Ampney St Peter or Eastington (and at times, Easington). To the east of St Peter was Ampney St Nicholas, a settlement situated from where the Red Lion pub (now closed) stands, up to Poulton. There were houses on the opposite side of the Red Lion in living memory.
The OpenStreetMap link on this website shows many footpaths linking surrounding villages: Ampney St Mary, Amney Crucis, Ampney St Peter, Poulton, Harnhill and Driffield.
In 2020 the parish of Ampney St Mary comprises 53 houses (41 in the centre of the village and 12 in outlying areas) and 105 adult residents. The total area covers around three-and-a -half square miles.
Ampney St Mary Village Website 