text: Henbury was historically a very large Gloucestershire parish. It extended to the River Severn and included the tithings of Aust, Charlton, Kingsweston, Lawrence Weston, Northwick and Stowick. When the civil parish was created in 1866, parts of the ancient parish were separated to form two civil parishes of Aust and Redwick & Northwick (later Pilning and Severn Beach), neither of which feature in this article.
  The civil parish of Henbury was bounded by the parishes of Northwick in the north, Compton Greenfield and Almondsbury in the north-east, a small connection with Filton in the east, Westbury-on-Trym in the south-east, and Shirehampton in the south-west. By 1935, the city of Bristol gradually extended its boundary into the southern half of the parish consisting of Henbury, Coombe Dingle, Lawrence Weston, Kingsweston, Sea Mills, Brentry, Chittening and the Blaise Castle estate. The northern half was transferred to the parish of Almondsbury and consists of Hallen, Catbrain, Cribbs Causeway and the lost village of Charlton.
  Henbury was first mentioned as Heanburg in 692, when a Saxon king gave the manor of Henbury to the Bishop of Worcester. The name is from the Old English ‘hēan byrig’ meaning ‘high fortified place’ and was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Henberie. Soon after the Conquest, the Bishops of Worcester founded a palace here and imparked many acres. Thomas PEVERELL the sixtieth bishop died here in 1418. Some ruinous buildings near the church seem to mark the site of the palace, which was their occasional residence. After the Dissolution and the seizure of the estate by the Crown, Henbury was granted to Sir Ralph SADLIER in 1547. It was sub-let by the Sadliers until they sold it in lots in 1675. A substantial part was purchased by Sir Samuel ASTRY, whose father-in-law, George MORSE had built a house, known as the Great House, on land in the village purchased from the Sadliers some ten years earlier. After Morse’s death in 1688, Astry took over and enlarged the house. He made formal gardens to the north and a double avenue to a summer house on the hilltop, the site of an Iron Age fort and a medieval chapel dedicated to St. Blaise. The whole layout is depicted in an engraving by Kip published in 1712. By 1715, his estate was divided between his three daughters.