Northleach is a market town and former civil parish, now in parish Northleach with Eastington, in the Cotswold district, in Gloucestershire, England. The town is in the valley of the River Leach in the Cotswolds, about northeast of Cirencester and east-southeast of Cheltenham. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 1,854, the same as Northleach built-up-area.
Manor
Northleach seems to have existed by about AD 780, when one Ethelmund son of Ingold granted 35 tributarii of land to Gloucester Abbey. The abbey later granted estates including Northleach to Ealdred, Bishop of Worcester, probably in about 1058 when he had the abbey church rebuilt. In 1060, Ealdred was translated to York, taking the lordship of Northleach with him. The Domesday Book of 1086 assessed the manor of Northleach at 37 hides. In 1095 a later Archbishop of York, Thomas of Bayeux, restored manors including Northleach to Gloucester Abbey. His successors disputed this until 1157, when the claim was finally settled in the abbey's favour.
In 1539 Parliament passed the Suppression of Religious Houses Act, and in 1540 Gloucester Abbey was suppressed and surrendered its estates to the Crown. Northleach became a Royal manor and remained so until 1611, when James I sold it to George and Thomas Whitmore. By 1641 it had passed to their brother Sir Thomas Whitmore, 1st Baronet, of Apley, Shropshire. Sir Thomas was a Royalist, so in 1645 in the English Civil War the Parliamentarians sequestered his estates, but Northleach was given such a low valuation that he was allowed to keep it. Northleach stayed in his family until 1753, when William Whitmore sold it to James Lennox Dutton, who had inherited a number of houses in the town from his father. In 1771 his son John Lenox Dutton left Northleach to Rev. Richard Rice, Rector of Quenington. It then descended via Rice's son and was divided between his three granddaughters. Jevon Harper, husband of one of the three sisters, eventually obtained all three shares in the manor.
By 1863 the manor had passed to Rev. Richard Blanche, minister of Northleach's Congregational chapel. In 1870 and 1906 one Thomas Stephens held the manor. In 1914 it was held by one Charles Cole, who died in 1931, leaving it to Mrs Alice Cole.
Church and chapels
Church of England
The earliest record of the parish church is from about 1100. Little from this period survives in the current Church of England parish church of SS Peter and Paul except some Norman masonry in the west wall of the lady chapel. The next oldest part of the church is a 14th-century cusped doorway on the north side of the chancel.
From the late 14th century the church was almost completely rebuilt in Perpendicular Gothic style. The west tower was built in about 1380–1400, and the font is also late 14th-century. The current nave and south porch were built in the first half of the 15th century, as was the pulpit. The nave has tall five-bay arcades with slender octagonal columns ornamented with concave sides. The nave clerestory was paid for by John Fortey, a wool merchant, who died in 1459. The lady chapel is south of the chancel and was completed in 1489. It has a squint to the high altar in the chancel.
The church was restored 1877–84 to designs by the Gothic Revival architect James Brooks. The chancel received a stained glass east window made by Alexander Gibbs in 1871. Little of Brooks' work at Northleach survives, except for his choir stalls in the north aisle. In 1920 a new high altar with riddel posts designed by FE Howard was installed in the chancel.
In 1961 a new restoration was begun, which includes seats designed by Sir Basil Spence and made by Gordon Russell. In the chancel Gibbs' 1871 east window was replaced by a modern one of Christ in Majesty made by Christopher Webb in 1963. The church is now a Grade I listed building. Its benefice is now combined with the parishes of Cold Aston, Compton Abdale, Farmington, Hampnett, Haselton, Notgrove and Turkdean.
The parish church has a number of monumental brasses. Most portray local wool merchants in civilian clothes with their wives: John Taylour (died 1400) and his wife Joane, Thomas Fortey (died 1447) with his wife Agnes and her first husband William Sors, John Fortey (died 1459), William Midwinter (died 1501) and his wife, Robert Serche (died 1501) and his wife Anne, Thomas Busshe (died 1526) and his wife Johane. In the chancel is a brass portraying a priest, William Lander (died 1530), in his Mass vestments.
