Its rural character is still maintained, having some ten working farms with dairy and beef herds and arable land.

An illustrated map, detailing four circular walks, can be downloaded from the Red Lion Web Site.

[13] Further walks, rides, routes and information can be found on Arlingham Walks and Cycle Rides Trains to Worcester, Cheltenham, Gloucester, Stroud, Swindon and London call at Stonehouse railway station and trains to Bristol, Bath and Westbury and Gloucester stop at Cam and Dursley railway station.

The mason was Nicholas Wyshonger from Gloucester, so that the Arlingham tower was not built by any specialist team of travelling craftsmen but by a local builder.

Some work had previously been done on the tower which was already several feet high, for Nicholas Wyshonger agreed to ‘build, construct and finish the belltower of the church of Erlyngham in the same manner as it had been started’.

The mason was to provide floors within the tower, held up by corbels and a spiral stairway with doors at the top and bottom.

[28] Indications of a Roman settlement have been found to the north of Passage Road and Romano-British pottery has been found in the area, including along the river bank at Arlingham Warth,[29][30] indicating that Arlingham was probably a wetland settlement of Roman Britain, possibly centred around iron workings.

Numerous dense concentrations of primitive iron-making bloomery slag are distributed over the arable land south of Passage Pill.

[31] "It is very likely that Romano-British farmers organised the building of the first flood banks and drainage ditches or rhynes, to bring more of the marshland into cultivation.

"[23] In the 6th century the Western Roman Empire finally collapsed and Arlingham became a Saxon village or "ham".

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,[33] the kingdom was established in 577 after "Cuthwine and Ceawlin fought against the Britons and killed three Kings, Conmail, Condidan, and Farinmail at the battle at Dyrham; and they captured three of their cities, Gloucester, Cirencester and Bath".

Hwicce included most of Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Bath north of the River Avon, plus small parts of Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire and north-west Wiltshire.

The earliest record of Arlingham church is in 1146, when the founder, Roger of Berkeley, a member of the Berkeley family and Baron of Dursley gave Arlingham church and its possessions to the Priory of St. Leonard Stanley (a Cell of St, Peter's, Gloucester Abbey, which in 1541 became Gloucester Cathedral).

Near Royal Orchard is a field formerly known as "The Pest Leaze" where, according to tradition, a large number of people were buried at the time of the plague.

On 5 September 1538, following the split with Rome, Thomas Cromwell, minister to Henry VIII, issued an injunction requiring the details of baptisms, marriages and burials to be kept in a Parish register.

[51] Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, in 1542 the Abbey's manor and land in Arlingham were passed to the Dean and Chapter of the Bristol Cathedral, Around 1566 Slowwe Manor and estate was purchased by Thomas Hodges, acquiring manorial dues in the process, "Slo" or "Sloo" House as it was originally called, was originally the property of Thomas Pavy and had several owners before being purchased by Thomas Hodges, thence descended down to John Sayer, the latter states in his book Antiquities of Arlingham Parish.

At that time the village had a shop, blacksmith, butcher, tailor, dressmaker, shoemaker, school mistress, engine fitter, barge owner, two public houses (The Red Lion and The New Inn[68]), as well mariners, watermen, bricklayers, masons, carpenters, 12 farmers.

[70] Arlingham is on the course of a Roman road,[71] the Margary 543[72] which is said to extend from a river crossing of the Severn at Arlingham through Frampton on Severn, Eastington, Frocester and Kingscote to join the Fosse Way It is believed that the remains of this can be found in Silver Street and that the straightness of Passage Road was due not to Roman ancestry but to the former existence of flanking rope walk.

[76] The position of this ford can still be seen at low tide, when the water ripples over the shallow bed of rock, a few hundred yards from Newnham, just below Broadoak.

This ford was still passable until around 1802, when the river changed channel, shifted and took away the sand bank that gave access to the fordable, though dangerous, rocky causeway.

"The last recorded party to use this ford was led by John Smith of Littledean, when he took over the tenancy of Overton Farm, Arlingham and drove his entire stock of cattle, sheep, wagons, goods and family, without loss over Newnam Passage.

Horses and coaches were carried in the 18th century and animals were carried in an ox or cattle boat and crossed the river to the railway station in Newham from when it opened in 1852 until 1914; the Ferry was also very important to the people of Arlingham because they could cross the river[81] to trade, catch a train to South Wales or Gloucester[82] or travel onwards.

Bakers in Newnham crossed the river daily to trade, bringing back cream and farm produce.

[29] In 1913 Arthur Cooke wrote in The Forest of Dean "At low tide a small portion only of the journey will be made by boat - the remaining area of tenacious mud-flats stretching from the farther shore must needs be traversed in The Ferryman's strong arms'.

Up until the 19th century the River Severn was a vital commercial thoroughfare providing a transport system for food, minerals, timber and other cash crops produced in the region to reach their markets in the outside world.

[85] Flat bottomed sailing barges known as Severn trows[86] used to navigate the river as far as Gloucester but they could only do that on the high spring tides.

In this state of maudlin inebriety, with money spent and thoughts of hungry families at home, they robbed Arlingham's fields and gardens of fruit and vegetables".