Description

Aust, or Aust Olive, a village and a tithing in Henbury parish, Gloucestershire. The village stands on the E shore of the Severn, 6 1/2 miles W by S of Thornbury, and 5 1/2 NW of Pilning station on the Bristol and South Wales branch of the G.W.R. Post offices are at Olveston and Thornbury. There was a ferry here on the Severn to Beachley, which had the name of the Old Passage, in connection with which stage coaches used to run daily to Bristol and other places; it was superseded by the New Passage, 2 miles lower down the river, which was also discontinuad on the completion of the Severn Tulnel. Aust was the ancient Trajectus Angusti, where the Roman legions used to be ferried over; and was also the place where Edward I. passed over to hold a conference with Llewellyn, and also the Roman bishops to meet the British bishops. Acreage, 1522 (and 1221 of water); population, 159. Much of the surface was marshy. Aust cliffs are of the Rhaitic formation, and contain a remarkable bone-bed, in which the remains of the Ceratodus, Labyrinthodon, Nemacanthus, and other interesting fossils have been found; beneath the bone-bed the strata are of a high salmon colour, the result of the chemical action of the decomposition of the bone-bed stratum. This characteristic appears in the rocks on both sides of the estuary, and again lower down at Penarth, and gypsum is present in large quantities, also the Gotham marble. The- living is a chapelry annexed to Northwick, in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol. It was formerly in the gift of the king, but now is in the gift of the Vicar of Henbury. The church is an ancient edifice, with an embattled tower, and contains an ancient font of the time of Henry VII., a good Norman arch with carved capitals, also a piscina, and a monument to Sir Samuel Astry. Wickliffe held the living in 1374, in connection with his prebendal stall in the Abbey of Westbury. It is generally supposed that it was at Aust he translated the Bible. The proof of his residence here is found in the Record Office, London, where is enrolled an order for the seizure of his goods at his residence, Aust.