The first record of Wotton-under-Edge appears in an Anglo-Saxon royal charter of AD 940, when King Edmund I leased four hides of land in 'Wudetun' — the village in the wood — to a man called Eadric. The 'Edge' in the town's name refers to the limestone escarpment of the Cotswolds looming directly above.
By the late medieval period, Wotton had grown prosperous on the wool trade. The Cotswold hills provided ideal grazing for sheep, and the streams running off the escarpment supplied water essential for washing and dyeing wool. The town's wealth is written in stone: its parish church, built with wool money, is grander than a settlement of this size would normally warrant. When the antiquary John Leland visited in 1538, he described Wotton as 'a pretty market town well occupied with clothiers.'
But geography, which had made the town, would also limit it. When the Industrial Revolution transformed the English cloth trade in the late eighteenth century, production shifted to places with better transport links — by road, canal, or railway. Wotton had none of these advantages. The cottage weavers who had sustained the town for generations found themselves unable to compete with the powered mills of Yorkshire and Lancashire. Trade declined steadily, and by Victorian times Wotton had reverted to being a quiet market town.
“' But geography, which had made the town, would also limit it.”
Walkers descending from Wotton Hill pass through a place whose modest appearance belies centuries of commercial importance. The fine stone buildings lining the streets are the lasting evidence of wool wealth that once made this small Cotswold town a player in European trade.
