Newent

Newent (ˈnjuːənt; originally called "Noent") is a market town and civil parish in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, England. The town is north-west of Gloucester. Its population was 5,073 at the 2001 census, rising to 5,207 in 2011, The population was 6,777 at the 2021 Census. Once a medieval market and fair town, its site had been settled at least since Roman times. The first written record of it appears in the 1086 Domesday Book. Noent, Newent's original name, may have meant "new place" in Celtic. It also may mean "new inn", referring to lodgings for travellers to Wales, according to John Leland (c. 1503–1552), who mentioned a house called New Inn, later named The Boothall, which provided lodging along the road to Wales. There was indeed such a house in Lewall Street, owned by members of the Richardson family in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Lewall Street runs between High Street and Court Lane, north of Broad Street. Newent is on the northern edge of the Forest of Dean, within the Forest of Dean District of Gloucestershire. and south-east of the River Wye. The river was connected via Newent to Gloucester in the late 18th century by the 34-mile Herefordshire and Gloucestershire Canal. A Roman road was laid between Newent and Ariconium, near what is now Ross-on-Wye. Within of Newent, there were several metal-working sites used by the Romans. Further evidence of Romano-British settlement occurs at 56 sites within of the town. Archaeological finds there include Roman coins and pottery near the town itself, Roman coins and treasure at Little Gorsley, and a settlement at Dymock. The priory established in Newent was a cell of Cormeilles Abbey, founded in Normandy in 1060 by William FitzOsbern, 1st Earl of Hereford. The abbey received an endowment from him that included the manor of Newent and surrounding woods, the church and its income, and other property he owned in England. The once Benedictine priory became part of the college of Fotheringhay after the suppression of alien priories during the Hundred Years' War with France.