Fawley, Berkshire

Fawley is a village and civil parish in West Berkshire, England. The hub of the village is centred east of Lambourn and has a sub-community within its bounds, Little or South Fawley. It includes a depopulated small hill settlement of Whatcombe. Fawley was the poor and depressed home of author Thomas Hardy's maternal grandmother – the main character in Jude the Obscure, stonemason Jude Fawley, lived in a fictional village Marygreen, and a relative, one of his biographers, links the memories of this woman to the book's bleak start. GeographyThe area is wholly on part of the escarpment of the tallest uplands in the county which cross into South-West Oxfordshire, the Berkshire or Lambourn Downs. The nucleus of the village is "Great Fawley" or "North Fawley" with the other settled place being South Fawley or Little Fawley, in the parish, 0. 6mi further south. The Ridgeway, an 87-mile path, passes in the neighbouring parish to the north. In the south of the parish is a slight peak of the downs, where there is accordingly a trig point (triangulation station) to measure the surrounding landscape. Most of the land to the west including Lambourn has only north-south public roads with the land which is made up with high fields, commons and small woods in between accessible by bridleways and footpaths. HistorySome Roman graves were discovered in April 1883 on a hill between North and South Fawley.

Fawley is a village and civil parish in West Berkshire, England. The hub of the village is centred east of Lambourn and has a sub-community within its bounds, Little or South Fawley. It includes a depopulated small hill settlement of Whatcombe. Fawley was the poor and depressed home of author Thomas Hardy's maternal grandmother – the main character in Jude the Obscure, stonemason Jude Fawley, lived in a fictional village Marygreen, and a relative, one of his biographers, links the memories of this woman to the book's bleak start. GeographyThe area is wholly on part of the escarpment of the tallest uplands in the county which cross into South-West Oxfordshire, the Berkshire or Lambourn Downs. The nucleus of the village is "Great Fawley" or "North Fawley" with the other settled place being South Fawley or Little Fawley, in the parish, 0. 6mi further south. The Ridgeway, an 87-mile path, passes in the neighbouring parish to the north. In the south of the parish is a slight peak of the downs, where there is accordingly a trig point (triangulation station) to measure the surrounding landscape. Most of the land to the west including Lambourn has only north-south public roads with the land which is made up with high fields, commons and small woods in between accessible by bridleways and footpaths. HistorySome Roman graves were discovered in April 1883 on a hill between North and South Fawley.