The Sands (21) - this huge pastoral amphitheatre of banks and ridges known as the Great Sands was once part of the arable North or “Peascombe” Field of the Tithing of Stoke. Each of Hawkesbury’s several tithings had two open or common fields in which medieval tenants held strips of land within furlongs (the longest stretch a team of oxen could plough before coming to a rest). On slopes the plough ridges tended to form the curved terraces which are clearly seen in this relict landscape. On the hill slopes these terraces were known as “lynches”.
There is also another stretch of once-arable land called the Sands south of the church in what was the South or “Heycroft” Field of Stoke tithing. Both areas are at the base of the hillside where the soil, although not a true sand, is more friable than that of the clay vale or the stony plateau and the name was probably descriptive. 17th century documents refer to land “lying in the Sands”, but not all use this term. “Two ridges of arable land containing about half an acre at the lower end of Gallowes Hill” (1632) for example, could be nowhere else.

Hawkesbury Knoll (22) - one of the oldest features in the Hawkesbury landscape occurs on the brow of the Knoll in the form of a Neolithic long barrow.

Lower Woods (23) - one of the last and largest vestiges of the Horwood Royal Forest that existed between 1100 and 1228 AD. The woods stretch across the parishes of Hawkesbury and Horton. Today the woods belong to the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust (GWT), and are managed as a nature reserve; they also form part of a Site of Special Scientific Interest.
The woods are ancient semi-natural woodland, and in earlier centuries were important sources of timber, coppice wood, faggots, and other wood products upon which the economies of both Hawkesbury and Horton parishes were so dependent. The Hawkesbury Lower Woods were also used as wood pasture and many properties had rights of common in the woods for taking reparation timber, wattling and spike rods. Access is via the track to Lower Woods Lodge, and by a number of footpaths across Inglestone and Hawkesbury Commons; a guide book is available from GWT.

Splatts Lynches (24) - these long, parallel terraces or strip-lynchets are not Roman vineyards, but the remains of medieval open fields which had been extended on to steep ground. Splatts Linches are part of an almost continuous chain of terraces along similar contour lines of the scarp from Little Sodbury through Horton, Hawkesbury, and Hillesley to the Kilcott valley. The staircase-like profiles were formed by repeated ploughing in one direction along the hillside. The plough nibbled away at the slope creating level “treads” whilst the banks or “risers” were formed by soil building up on the downhill side. From the top of Splatts Linches the view opens out over the Severn Vale. Towards the south-west the expanse of Lower Woods can be seen beyond segments of Inglestone and Hawkesbury commons, whilst to the north the scarp edge continues around, sheltering Hillesley, Alderley and Wotton-under-Edge. Just below, stands the prominent greyish-white limestone farmhouse of Lovettswood (25), which takes its name from the Lyvet family, Lords of the Manor of Hillesley in the 12th and 13th centuries.

The Hawkesbury Monument (26) was erected to the memory of a general at the Battle of Waterloo, Lord Robert Edward Henry Somerset, a member of the Beaufort family of Badminton, who died in 1842. The monument was designed by Lewis Vulliamy and dated 1846. It is a slightly tapering square stone tower, surmounted by a gilt cross, and is approximately 100 feet high with an entrance on the north-east side.

Gallows Hill (27) the abbott of Pershore as lord of the manor had the right of gallows at Hawkesbury; the gallows stood on the elevated area still known as Gallows Hill.

The Tithe Barn (28) although ‘The Tithe Barn’ is a misnomer for the building currently standing, it reflects the fact that Hawkesbury’s tithe barn was originally situated in the vicinity. It was part of the manorial complex centred on ‘Le Barnes’ which also included rabbit warrens and a dovecote.
A lease of 1751 mentions “one little piece of ground whereon the tithe barn formerly stood in a place called Pigeon House Close”. It was demolished in 1698 and was replaced by Dunkirk Barn which still stands close to the A46. Records of the Badminton Estate show that one Richard Martin was paid £1 on April 12th 1698 “for taking all the tyles of(f) the great tyth barn at Hawkesbury in order to pull it down”.

Pool Farm (29) and its barns and outbuildings lie next to the pool, an ancient drovers pond where beasts were watered en-route to market. The field to the south of the pool, once known as “Penning”, may once have been used for holding drovers’ stock.

Le Barnes (30) (now known as Home Farm) the property facing the pool has been identified as another of Hawkesbury’s significant old buildings. It was an important manorial holding known variously as “the upper farm in Hawkesbury called Hawkesbury’s Barnes” (1664), “the scite of the manor and capital messuage of Over (=upper) Hawkesbury called Hawkesbury’s Barnes” (1652), or simply “Le Barnes” (1507, the earliest surviving lease whereby the Abbot of Pershore, Lord of the Manor, granted the property to a Thomas Pleyer).
A noteworthy feature of the site was “one great barne newly built by the name of the high barne and chief sheephowse”, the words “newly built” appearing in leases for well over 100 years! The occupier was allowed to pasture 300 sheep in Swangrove. The oldest, central portion of the present house seems to have had a substantial stone building adjoining on the eastern side. Perhaps this was the “chief sheephowse”?
The plural ending of Le Barnes suggests the existence of more than one agricultural building. It is possible that the Tithe barns of both Stoke and Upton were within the complex which also housed a dovecote and conyger (rabbit warren).