Stroud

"STROUD, (or Stroudwater), a parish, post and market town, and parliamentary borough in the hundred of Bisley, county Gloucester, 9½ miles S.E. of Gloucester, and 14 from Cheltenham. It has a station on the Great Western Union railway. It is a petty sessions and polling town, situated on the Slade or Stroud canal, a short distance from its confluence with the river Frome. It stands on a declivity, sheltered by the Cotswolds, at a point where the vales of Avening, Rodborough, Chalford, and Painswick meet.

The town consists principally of one long street extending up the side of the hill, with another diverging from it at the base, besides several smaller streets and newly formed roads connecting it with the neighbouring towns. The streets are well paved, drained, and lighted with gas. It contains two banks, court-house, casualty hospital, union workhouse, and gas works. The county court is held monthly, and petty sessions for the hundred weekly. It formed part of Bisley up to Edward II.'s time, and was created a parliamentary borough by-the Reform Bill, with power to return two members. The bounds include twelve adjoining villages and parishes.

It has long been the centre of the woollen manufacture in Gloucestershire, and the dyeing of scarlet is carried on to some considerable extent. There are also several breweries, several iron foundries, and silk mills, and dye works within a short distance of the town, and at Lightpill Mills is an extensive pin manufactory. Tusks of the mammoth, and other fossils of a fine description, have been discovered in the lias hills which surround the town. The population of the parish in 1861 was 9,090, but that of the borough 35,517.

The Stroudwater canal was formed in 1775, and flows 8 miles W., with a fall of 802 feet to the Severn at Framilode, passing close along the Slade or Stroud river, and is joined to the Thames by a canal which goes E. to Lechlade.

The benefice is a perpetual curacy* with the curacy of Holy Trinity annexed, in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol, value £132, in the patronage of the bishop. The church, dedicated to St. Lawrence, has been enlarged at different periods; it has a tower at its western end surmounted by a steeple. There is a church and an ecclesiastical parish at Whiteshill, which is a perpetual curacy*; the church was erected in 1839. There are National schools for both sexes, also British schools, and a charity school, designated the Red School, which clothes, educates, and apprentices four boys. The Independents, Wesleyans, and Primitive Methodists have chapels.

At Woodchester are a recently-built Roman Catholic chapel and monastery; in Woodchester churchyard is a tesselated pavement. In 1855 an extramural cemetery was formed on rising ground at a short distance from the Union workhouse. Canton, who first made artificial magnets, and White, the Arabic scholar, both weavers, were born in this parish. Lyppiat Park was formerly the seat of the Throgmortons and the Delbins. Market day is on Friday. Fairs are held on 10th May and 21st and 22nd August for cattle, sheep, and pigs."

"BOWBRIDGE, a hamlet in the parish of Stroud, hundred of Bisley, in the county of Gloucester, not far from Stroud. It is seated in a fine country on the banks of the Thames, and the Thames and Severn canal."

"PAKENHILL, (or Pagenhill), a tything in the parish of Stroud, county Gloucester, 2 miles from Stroud."

"STEANBRIDGE, a tything in the parish of Stroud, hundred of Bisley, county Gloucester, 2 miles from Stroud, but within the limits of that borough."

"THE THRUPP, a hamlet in the parish of Stroud, hundred of Bisley, county Gloucester. This village is situated in a vale, through which passes the Thames and Severn canal. The manufacture of superfine woollen cloths is extensively carried on, and there are wool-stapling firms, an iron and brass foundry, and an engineering establishment."

"UPPER LYPPIATT, (and Lower) tythings in the parish of Stroud, county Gloucester, 2 miles E. of Stroud. The Great Western railway, and the canal, pass through the neighbourhood. This is said to have been a meeting-place of the conspirators in the gunpowder plot."

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