It is one of the area’s more ancient names. Recorded in the Domesday Survey of 1086 as Goswella it was held at that time by the Saxon Heche, the man who put the Egg in Eggbuckland (it was then the land entered in the book belonging to Heche, or Heche’s book land). After the Conquest however Goosewell manor was given to one of William the Conqueror’s knights – William de Poillei.
The name, it is believed is derived exactly as one would expect –from a well associated with geese, hence the goosewell. There are numerous other goose, or geese, related names around the country but few as blatant and usually with only one “o” –as in Gosport (Hampshire), Gosbeck (goose stream – Suffolk), Goscote (hut for geese – Leicestershire), Goswick (goose farm – Northumberland) and Gosford (Devon), although there is the simple Goosey (goose island), in Berkshire.
The manor of Goosewell had stretching from Radford to the Wembury Road, had working farms – Higher and Lower Goosewell – well into the twentieth century and, until the 1960s an impressive row of early seventeenth century almhouses, paid for by Sir Christopher Harris of Radford – sadly they were never listed and the site was redeveloped.
