Newent (/ˈnjuːənt/; originally called "Noent") is a market town and civil parish in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, England.

[7][8] There was indeed such a house in Lewall Street, owned by members of the Richardson family in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

[16] The priory established in Newent was a cell of Cormeilles Abbey, founded in Normandy in 1060 by William FitzOsbern, 1st Earl of Hereford.

The abbey received an endowment from him that included the manor of Newent and surrounding woods, the church and its income, and other property he owned in England.

[18] Henry III approved an annual fair in 1226 and additionally allowed for a weekly market, which began in 1253.

St Mary's has stained glass windows from the famed company of Clayton and Bell.

[26] The early 18th-century Court House, standing in a small park by the parish church, occupies the site of the ancient priory and is reputed to contain its foundations.

Its historic features include a fine Rococo plaster ceiling and several completely panelled rooms.

Newent is near a National Birds of Prey Centre, just east of the neighbouring village of Cliffords Mesne, and a vineyard, the Three Choirs.

[30] The town is home to an orchestra, founded in 1940,[31] a choral society,[32] and several other amateur musical and performing groups.

Traditionally, May Day was celebrated by morris dancing on the summit of nearby May Hill at dawn, after which the dancers would process into Newent.

[34] Artist Paul Nash took a collection of photographs around Carswalls Farm, Upleadon, Newent in the late 1930s or early 1940s that are held in the archives of the Tate.

[35] Education commissioners in the reign of Edward VI (1547–53) noted the lack of schooling in Newent, then a market town with over 500 inhabitants, but "all the youth of a great distance there hence rudely brought up and in no manner of knowledge and learning, where were a place meet to... erect a school for the better and more godly bringing up of the same youth.

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