Yate is a town and civil parish in South Gloucestershire, England. It lies just to the southwest of the Cotswold Hills and is northeast of Bristol city centre and from the centre of Bath, with regular rail services to Bristol and Gloucester.
Developing from a small village into a town from the 1950s onwards, the 2011 census listed Yate's parish population as 21,789. The market town of Chipping Sodbury (population 5,045) is contiguous with Yate to the east. In addition, a large southern section of the built-up area spills over into the parish of Dodington (population 8,206), and as a result, the total population of Yate's urban area is estimated at 35,000.
Location
Yate is located in South Gloucestershire in the South West of England. The town is northeast of Bristol city centre, which is about away by road. Apart from Chipping Sodbury to the east, Yate is surrounded by countryside and is situated to the south-west of the Cotswolds. The A432 is the main road to serve Yate and runs through the centre of the town.
The Yate-Chipping Sodbury conurbation is near the centre of the South Gloucestershire district. It is situated between suburban Bristol to the southwest and the Cotswold escarpment to the northeast.
History
The first mention of Yate is the existence of a religious house in about AD 770; Yate is also mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086. The name is derived from the Old English word giete or gete, meaning 'a gateway into a forest area'.
During the Anglo-Saxon period and well into medieval times, most of this part of south Gloucestershire was covered with forest. Through the centuries the land was cleared for farming.
The town's parish church, St Mary's, dates from Norman times. It was altered during the 15th century and was extensively restored in 1970. St Mary's Primary School, situated outside the churchyard walls, was built on the site of a former poorhouse.
It was the opening of the railway station in 1844, as part of Bristol and Gloucester Railway, that established Yate, with Station Road becoming the central thoroughfare. The cattle and produce markets were held around this road, and businesses were established there. Yate railway station was closed by the Beeching cuts in January 1965, but was reopened in May 1989; the Brunel-built engine shed is preserved nearby.
Major growth in Yate started in the early 1920s with the construction of the Moorland Road estates behind Station Road, close to the Parnall aeroplane factory. In the 1950s the Ridge housing estate was developed. The area between these estates was still being mined for celestine and therefore could not be built on until the mineral had been extracted.
In the 1960s Yate was designated as a development area and the building boom began. The creation of a new town included a large retail shopping area, sports and leisure development together with public buildings.
In the 1960s the area around Stanshawes was exhausted of celestine and the housing boom started with the major construction taking place in the south. Much of this development was planned using the Radburn model, a design that created a vehicle-free environment by the use of green spaces and linking paths at the front of the houses. This model was used until the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the planners reverted to traditional street design methods for the development of the remainder of North Yate, Brimsham Park and the Newmans factory site.
When a secondary school was built in the late 1970s, it was supposed to be called Brinsham Green School, after Brinsham Lane at nearby Yate Rocks. Owing to a spelling error, however, it was in fact called Brimsham Green School. The town further expanded in the 1990s and 2000s with the construction of housing at North Yate. This housing estate continued to use the corrupted name of Brimsham. To locals the area is known as Brimsham Park.
Yate railway yard
During the Second World War, a railway transfer yard was constructed for the United States Army, probably as part of Operation Bolero to assist the buildup of troops and stores before D-Day. Two large storage sheds survived on the site until 2008.
At the end of the Second World War, the site was taken over by the Royal Navy and became known as the Sea Transport Stores Depot. It was occupied by the Highways Agency until the sheds were demolished for development.
Oxford Archaeology has been commissioned to undertake an investigation as to the military significance of this site. The opinion of Bristol Industrial Archaeological Society has also been sought.