English Bicknor is a village and civil parish in the Forest of Dean district of west Gloucestershire, England. The 2011 Census recorded the population as 408. The village is near the county boundary with Herefordshire, opposite which is the village of Welsh Bicknor. The two villages are on opposite sides of the River Wye. History The Domesday Book of 1086 records Bicknor as Bicanofre. The second morpheme of the toponym, ōfer, is thought to come from the Old English for river bank, referring to the two villages' positions either side of the river. Various hypotheses have been put forward for the origin of the first morpheme in the name, but may mean a place belonging to Bica. English Bicknor is one of the ancient villages of the Forest of Dean, situated at the top of a hill overlooking the Wye Valley, and once the site of English Bicknor Castle, a motte and bailey castle, the remnants of which can still be seen. Close to the village is Bicknor Court, an imposing house some 400 years old. Situated between Symond's Yat and Lower Lydbrook on high ground opposite its namesake Welsh Bicknor. English Bicknor is first recorded as a hamlet in 1066. The parish is primarily agricultural and industrial. Its main attraction is the small Norman Church of England parish church of St Mary the Virgin which has notable internal 12th-century stonemasonry and sculpture. The church is in the outer courtyard of the motte-and-bailey castle. Norman masonry has been found in the motte, suggesting at least part was built in stone. Nothing of the castle's structure survives, but its location remains identifiable. A typical early Norman defence work which is one of many along the Welsh Marches, it is thought to have been built in the reign of Henry I of England (1100–35) or King Stephen (1135–54) and was demolished or destroyed by the late 14th century, but why and how is not known (possibly during the rebellion of Owain Glyndŵr). Parish church The parish church is Norman, built in the 12th century. It is in an oval churchyard of Anglo-Saxon origin within the outer courtyard of a Norman motte-and-bailey castle. The exterior walls were restored in the Victorian era. Only the exterior stonework of the 13th-century west tower is original. Earlier the church had a crossing tower, but was it built from the soft local sandstone which became unsafe. Inside