Stoke Orchard

Stoke Orchard is a village or hamlet approximately 2.5 miles (4.0 km) northwest of Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, England.

Stoke Orchard was formerly home to the Coal Research Establishment of the National Coal Board, which moved onto the site of a Ministry for Aircraft Production shadow factory run by the Gloster Aircraft Company adjacent to RAF Stoke Orchard.

Stoke Orchard, in common with many villages in this part of Gloucestershire, has a sizeable church[2] but no pubs.

The community centre is a fully self supporting building, which generates income through providing a great space for various classes, event days and parties, and recently won a national award from Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) for the most ecologically-friendly village hall in the country.

The church has early wall paintings of the life of St James - revealed when the whitewash applied at the time of the English Reformation was removed, and it was a staging post on the route for pilgrims making their way to Santiago de Compostela.