On 29th May 1863, the Honourable Colonel Berkeley laid the foundation stone of the Tyndale Monument on Nibley Knoll, a prominent hilltop above the village of North Nibley. Three years later, on 6th November 1866, the Earl of Ducie inaugurated the completed tower — 111 feet of dressed stone rising from the Cotswold escarpment, visible from as far away as Bristol, over twenty miles to the south-west.
The monument was built to honour William Tyndale, the scholar and linguist believed to have been born in the Dursley area around 1494. Its position on the skyline is deliberate: from the top of the tower's 121-step spiral staircase, the view sweeps down to the River Severn and across the vale — the same landscape the young Tyndale would have known before leaving for Oxford to study Greek.
A charming detail survives from the construction. When the tower was finished, each workman who had laboured on its building was presented with a beautifully bound copy of the Authorised Version of the Bible. It was an entirely fitting gift: the very words in those Bibles owed an enormous debt to Tyndale's translations. At least one of these presentation copies is still a cherished family heirloom in Wotton-under-Edge today.
“When the tower was finished, each workman who had laboured on its building was presented with a beautifully bound copy of the Authorised Version of the Bible.”
Locally, the tower is known simply as 'Nibley Monument' rather than by its official name. The Cotswold Way passes directly at its foot before descending the hill into North Nibley. The monument is Grade II* listed and freely accessible to climbers willing to tackle the narrow staircase.
