History
Newton St Loe takes its name from the first "owner" of the mansion estate "St Loe", which was given to him as a gift by William the Conqueror. St Loe was born and bred in France.
There is evidence of a 3rd century Roman villa on a site between Newton St Loe and Bath on the south side of the River Avon. It was discovered in 1837 during the cutting of the Bristol-Bath railway line when excavations were carried out and drawings of the site made before much of it was lost in the railway construction. Two mosaics were removed, one of which, known as the Orpheus Mosaic, is now in the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. A further investigation was carried out in 1968 before the widening of the A4 however it is still the case that little is known about the villa.
The parish was recorded in the Domesday Book with the name Niwetone. The parish of Newton St Loe was part of the Wellow Hundred.
There is a history of coal mining in the area as part of the Somerset coalfield but all mines have now closed. Lower and Middle Coal Measures at depths between 500 and 5,000 feet (152-1,525 m) of the Pensford Syncline, were worked at the Globe Pit in Newton St Loe in the 19th century.
There was formerly a forge at the top of Smith Hill that leads up into the village.
The village school, established in 1698 close by Holy Trinity Church, closed in 1972. Queen Elizabeth II visited the school on 17 April 1956 when she came to the village following her official opening of the Chew Valley reservoir. The village also once had a Girls' school, now the village hall, built in 1846.
Read more about this topic: Newton St Loe
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Man watches his history on the screen with apathy and an occasional passing flicker of horror or indignation.”
—Conor Cruise O’Brien (b. 1917)
“I cannot be much pleased without an appearance of truth; at least of possibility—I wish the history to be natural though the sentiments are refined; and the characters to be probable, though their behaviour is excelling.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“Postmodernism is, almost by definition, a transitional cusp of social, cultural, economic and ideological history when modernism’s high-minded principles and preoccupations have ceased to function, but before they have been replaced with a totally new system of values. It represents a moment of suspension before the batteries are recharged for the new millennium, an acknowledgment that preceding the future is a strange and hybrid interregnum that might be called the last gasp of the past.”
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. Sunday Times: Books (London, April 21, 1991)