Owlpen

Coordinates: 51°41′02″N 2°17′32″W / 51.68400°N 2.29213°W / 51.68400; -2.29213

Owlpen is a small village and civil parish in the Stroud district of Gloucestershire, England, set in a picturesque valley in the Cotswold hills. It is about one mile east of Uley, and three miles east of Dursley. The Owlpen valley is set around the settlement like an amphitheatre of wooded hills open to the west. The landscape falls within the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, so designated in 1966. The population of the parish in mid-2010 was 29 (est.), the smallest in Gloucestershire.

The principal feature of the village is the famous Tudor manor house, Owlpen Manor, of the Mander family. The main economic activities in the village are agriculture, forestry and tourism.

Name

Owlpen (pronounced locally "Ole-pen") derives its name, it is thought, from the Saxon thegn, Olla, who first set up his pen, or enclosure, by the springs that rise under the foundations of the manor, about the 9th century.