Amberley

How Amberley began

Amberley traces its oldest landmark to 1797, when James Baxter purchased about 320 acres in the area and, in 1807, built the house that still stands as the James Baxter House. The village itself is much younger: it incorporated on April 5, 1940, and took its name from Amberley, a village in West Sussex, England. Amberley grew after World War II into a heavily Jewish suburb, home to Adath Israel Congregation (relocated 1967), Rockdale Temple (1969), the Isaac M. Wise Temple's Wise Center (1976) and the Mayerson Jewish Community Center (2008). The Benham Mound, a Hopewell-era earthwork within the village, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, the same list that includes the Baxter House (1994).

Settled 1797, incorporated 1940, by James Baxter (1797 land purchase, 1807 house); incorporated as a village April 5, 1940.

Where the name comes from

The village was named after Amberley, a village in West Sussex, England.

Before the town

Amberley holds the Benham Mound, a prehistoric earthwork attributed to the Hopewell tradition, sited in what was originally Section 30 of Columbia Township off Montgomery Road; it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. No source consulted names a historic-era Native village, trail or treaty line specific to the Amberley site itself.

Nations recorded here: Hopewell culture.

• Benham Mound (mound) — Section 30 of the original Columbia Township, off Montgomery Road, Amberley village, Hamilton County, Hopewell culture (en.wikipedia.org)

Timeline

1. 1797 — James Baxter purchases about 320 acres of land in the area that becomes Amberley.
2. 1807 — James Baxter builds the original portion of the James Baxter House.
3. 1940 — Amberley is incorporated as a village on April 5, taking its name from Amberley, West Sussex, England.
4. 1955 — The village adopts a council-manager form of government.
5. 1967 — Adath Israel Congregation relocates to Amberley.
6. 1969 — Rockdale Temple opens its Amberley synagogue.
7. 1974 — The Benham Mound is added to the National Register of Historic Places.
8. 1994 — The James Baxter House is added to the National Register of Historic Places.
9. 2008 — The Mayerson Jewish Community Center opens in Amberley.

Stories

An English village name on an 1807 farmhouse road

The oldest thing in Amberley predates the village itself by more than a century: James Baxter bought roughly 320 acres here in 1797 and in 1807 built the farmhouse that still stands as the James Baxter House, decades before anyone called the place Amberley at all. The village did not incorporate until 1940, when it took its name from a small village in West Sussex, England, with no documented personal connection to any local family. In the decades after World War II, Amberley became a center of Reform and Conservative Jewish life in Greater Cincinnati, as Adath Israel Congregation, Rockdale Temple and the Isaac M. Wise Temple's Wise Center all relocated there between 1967 and 1976, followed by the Mayerson Jewish Community Center in 2008 — a religious geography built entirely within living memory, on ground Baxter had farmed a century and a half earlier.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org

Every historic place in Hamilton County on the full map

Ohio River intake at the plant's riverfront on Kellogg Ave in the California neighborhood, east Cincinnati The water here

• Cincinnati Public Water System96% of residentsOhio River (Miller Plant, ~88%) plus Great Miami Buried Valley Aquifer wells (~12%)
• Reading City4% of residentsOhio River (Miller Plant, ~88%) plus Great Miami Buried Valley Aquifer wells (~12%)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

Police stations (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (2)

Money issues on the ballot since 2022: 1 of 1 passed.

Ballot issues

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Financial Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-12-31

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

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