Kingswood

"KINGSWOOD, a parish and township in the hundred of Chippenham, county Gloucester, 1 mile S.W. of Wootton-under-Edge, its post town, and 2 miles from the Charfield station, on the Bristol and Birmingham railway. It was once forest, and has the gatehouse and other remains of a Cistercian priory, founded in 1139 by Roger Berkeley, as a cell to Tyntern Abbey. The site was given by Queen Elizabeth to the Thynnes. Previous to 1844 it formed part of the county of Wilts, but is now annexed to Gloucester. The village is considerable, and many of the inhabitants in the cloth trade. There are woollen cloth factories at Kingswood Mills, Nind Mills, and Park Mills, also a brewery.

The living is a perpetual curacy* in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol, value £99, in the patronage of the inhabitants. The church, dedicated to St. Mary, is an ancient stone structure with one bell. It contains an ancient font, and tombs of the Berkeley family. There are schools for boys and infants. The Wesleyans and Independents have chapels. R. H. Blagden Hale, Esq., is lord of the manor."

[Description(s) from The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868)
Transcribed by Colin Hinson ©2003]