Hucclecote Parish has always been ideally situated for the traveller.  The parish is split into two by Hucclecote Road which traverses virtually West to East.  This road with very little modification is the Roman Ermin Street (often confused with and misspelled Ermine Street) running between Gloucester and Cirencester.  It was a turnpike-road, Gloucester to London.  It was used as the Welsh cattle drover’s route probably before the Romans arrived and certainly after they left.

We have a plethora of modern roads The Order for the M5 Motorway was made in 1966 and the road cuts through the centre of parish dividing it on half in the Southwest – Northeast axis.  The motorway was finally opened in March 1971.  At the same time, 1966, planning work on the Barnwood Bypass was started.  This road runs almost southeast – Northwest, again cutting the parish in two about its centre where it cuts under the M5.  The Barnwood Bypass meets the next bypass road to be built, the Brockworth Bypass, (1994/95), at the notorious Zoons Court Roundabout.  We are part owners with Brockworth of Junction 11A of the M5 motorway; the junction was built in 1993/94 as part of the M5/A417 Improvement Scheme.  We can readily travel to and from Bristol and Exeter but we have a little more trouble with Birmingham and the North because of the restricted junction.  Not much of the Brockworth Bypass exists in the parish but it had heavy local implications.  Not done with the amount of tar macadam sprayed about we also have the highly contentious Link Road from the Brockworth Bypass to the Gloucester Business Park (the old Gloucester Trading Estate).  You would think with all these roads we are easy to find but beware as all road signs will lead you back to our past in “the other part of Hucclecote” (shh….. Gloucester City don’t ya know!)

Always linked to Churchdown and the hill but always separate in the records.  Hucklecot, Hochilicote or Uchelgoed we have been spelled by various generations.  It is romantic and correct to believe that we are high or lofty wood from the British derivation Ukel-coed.  However, the truth may be a simpler Huccle-cot (e) and we shall never know who or what Huccle was or where the cot(tage) stood, but there are references to Huccle Brook now Horsbere Brook.  The same could be said of Noake or Noke in the parish, which some believe is named for some person.  It would be more likely, as other authorities suggest, that it is a typically Gloucestershire corruption of Hoke (Oak).

Samuel Rudder and Sir Robert Atkyns both agree in broad terms that at some time after the Conquest and Doomsday that:-

‘The same Stigand [Archbishop of Canterbury] held Hochilicote.  There were [at Doomsday] four hides, and in demean two plow-tillages, and eleven villeins, and five bordars with eleven plow-tillages.  There is a mill of 32d.[rent] and a wood one mile long, and half a mile broad.  It was then, and is now, worth 4l.’

Rudders description would suit the 21st century version of the state of the pavements and roads within the parish:-

‘The old Roman road runs through this place, but it is so worn out and destroyed as not to be discoverable by a slight observer.’

Noke was mentioned in 1327 in an assessment for subsidy as a loose collection of farmsteads and cottages.  Zoons Court farmstead had been built by 1689.

By 1807 a house had been built at Fair Mile on Ermin Street and the Victoria public house opened in 1846 at Fair Mile.

Hucclecote has been much raided for land.  Land at Elmbridge Court was taken for the inauguration of Longlevens Parish and the land at the summit of the misnamed Churchdown (Chosen for preference) Hill was taken out of the parish in the 1800s. 

The Ancient and Present State of Gloucestershire., Volume I,1712, Sir Robert Atkyns.

A New History of Gloucestershire, 1783, Samuel Rudder.

The current boundary of the Hucclecote Parish was formed on 1st April 1967 when part of the old Gloucester Rural District Council area was taken into Gloucester City.  These changes in local government structure split old Hucclecote into two parts; the Gloucester City part was not given its own parish council 

Tewkesbury Borough Council was formed in 1974 and was made up from the old Tewkesbury Town Council, part of the Cheltenham Rural District Council and part of the Gloucester Rural District Council.  It was formed against the will of the City of Gloucester and the Cheltenham District Councils. It went to appeal and the Inspector felt that Gloucester and Cheltenham would become one if their boundaries touched and there would be no protection for the Green Belt.

The first Parish Meeting was held in the School Room, Hucclecote with Reverend Heath presiding in the Chair on Tuesday 4^th December 1894.  This meeting set up Hucclecote Parish Council under the Local Government Act of 1894 with 5 seats and 10 nominations.  The first Parish Council meeting was held on 2^nd January 1895.

Hucclecote Meadows are a Site of Special Scientific Interest and, hence, are administered by English Nature.  They are unimproved pastureland with a rich flora.  There are actually three physical fields.  Gloucester City oversees the first on its side of the M5 Motorway.  Our meadow is on the Hucclecote Airfield and South side of Lobleys Motorway Bridge.  On further south is the third field that lies in Upton St. Leonard’s and Stroud District Council.  Time is not being kind to the meadows and they are under constant pressure from people walking, people walking their dogs and, absurdly, motorcyclists!  There are moves afoot to bring the whole under the local jurisdiction of Gloucester City Council for economy purposes.  The developers on our side have plans to fence off the two meadows with animal-proof fencing as the site is put under further pressure from housing development.  For further details of the meadows from the more important natural aspect see the Tewkesbury Borough Council, Gloucester City Council and English Nature web sites.