Winchcombe
Winchcombe is a Cotswold community in the local authority district of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, England. Its population according to the 2011 census was 4,538. During the Anarchy of the 12th century, a motte-and-bailey castle was erected in the very early 1140s by Roger Fitzmiles, second Earl of Hereford for the Empress Matilda, although the precise site of this is unidentified;. It has been suggested nevertheless, that it was to the south of St Peter's Church. In the Restoration period, Winchcombe was noted for livestock rustling and other lawlessness, triggered partly by hardship. In an effort to work, neighborhood individuals grew tobacco as a cash crop, in spite of this practice having actually been disallowed since the Commonwealth. Soldiers were sent in on a minimum of one occasion to ruin the unlawful plant. In Winchcombe as well as the prompt area can be found Sudeley Castle as well as the remains of Hailes Abbey, which was one of the main centres of pilgrimages in Britain because of a phial possessed by the monks claimed to consist of the Blood of Christ. There is nothing left of the previous Winchcombe Abbey. St Peter's Church in the centre of the town is noted for its grotesques.
