Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for THORNBURY

THORNBURY, a small town, a parish, a subdistrict, a district, and a hundred, in Gloucester. The town stands in Berkeley Vale, 5¾ miles W by N of Wickwar r. station, and 12 NNE of Bristol; has remains of a palatial castle, founded in 1511 by Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, and never completed; ranks as a borough, governed by a mayor and 12 aldermen; is a seat of petty sessions and county courts, and a polling place; and has a post-office‡ under Bristol, a banking office, a reading room, a police station, a later English cruciform church restored in 1866, three dissenting chapels, an endowed grammar-school with £57 a year, another endowed school -with £42, charities £141, a weekly market on Saturday, and three annual fairs. Real property, £3,650. Pop., 1,497. Houses, 336.—The parish contains also three tythings and a chapelry; extends to the Severn; and comprises 13,222 acres of land, and 2,510 of water. Pop., 4,494. Houses, 983. T. Castle is a seat of H. Howard, Esq.; and Eastwood Park is the seat of Sir G. S. Jenkinson, Bart. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol. Value, £500.* Patron, Christchurch, Oxford. The p. curacies of Falfield, Oldbury-on-Severn, and Rangeworthy are separate benefices. --The sub-district contains 4 parishes. Acres, 21,617. Pop., 5,870. Houses, 1,281.—The district includes also Berkeley and Almondsbury sub-districts, and comprises 65,840 acres. Poor rates in 1863, £7,669. Pop. in 1851, 16,454; in 1861, 16,499. Houses, 3,459. Marriages in 1863, 84; births, 521,-of which 34 were illegitimate; deaths, 319,-of which 115 were at ages under 5 years, and 13 at ages above 85. Marriages in the ten years 1851-60, 844; births, 4,462; deaths, 2,756. The places of worship, in 1851, were 19 of the Church of England, with 5,567 sittings; 9 of Independents, with 1,967 s.; 3 of Baptists, with 424 s.; 1 of Quakers, with 240 s.; 15 of Wesleyans, with 2,890 s.; 3 of Wesleyan Reformers, with 235 s.; and 1 of Calvinistic Methodists, with 120 attendants. The schools were 19 public day-schools, with 1,119 scholars; 31 private day-schools, with 604 s.; 27 Sunday schools, with 1,948 s.; and 1 evening school for adults, with 12 s. The workhouse is in Kington tything.-The hundred contains 7 parishes and a part; and is cut into two divisions, lower and upper. Acres, 20,759 and 5,845. Pop. in 1851, 6,344 and 1,648; in 1861, 7,917. Houses, 1,753.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a small town, a parish, a subdistrict, a district, and a hundred"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Thornbury AP/CP       Thornbury Hundred       Thornbury SubD       Thornbury RegD/PLU       Gloucestershire AncC
Place: Thornbury

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