Cliffords Mesne is an English village in Gloucestershire, two miles (3.2 km) south-west of the town of Newent. It became the home of the autobiographical author Winifred Foley from the mid-1970s, after the success of her first book of Gloucestershire reminiscences, A Child in the Forest.[1]
Cliffords Mesne possesses a public house, the Yew Tree Inn. The village is close to May Hill, which is owned by the National Trust, and to the International Centre for Birds of Prey.[2] The Village Hall was refurbished in 2013 and holds regular social and musical events.[3]
There is a single weekly bus service to and from Ross-on-Wye on Thursdays, but daily bus services between Gloucester and Ross-on-Wye pass through nearby Kilcot (4 km).[4] The nearest railway station is Gloucester (20 km).
The small Anglican church is dedicated to St Peter. Designed by E. S. Harris, it was built in 1882 of stone, with a central bellcote, a nave, a chancel, a south porch and a south vestry. It has contemporary stained glass dedicated to a local falconer and a memorial tablet to two local men who died on active service in the Second World War.[5] The church parish is merged with Gorsley. It shares clergy with the benefice of Newent and lies in the Diocese of Gloucester.[6]
An earlier stone church built in Gothic style in 1872 and extended in 1877, became the village school, which is now closed.[7] The building serves as a non-denominational village hall.[8]
The single listed historic building in Cliffords Mesne is the outlying Ravenshill Farmhouse, north of the village. Most of this dates from the late 17th and early 18th centuries.[9] The combined population of Cliffords Mesne and Gorsley was 1320 in 1876.[10]
