Great Rissington, Gloucestershire
Historical Description
Rissington, Great, a village and a parish in Gloucestershire, between the river Windrush and the boundary with Oxfordshire, 5 miles SSE of Bourton-on-the Water station on the G.W.R., and 5 NW of Burford. There is a post office under Bourton-on-the Water (S.O.); money order and telegraph office, Sherborne. Acreage, 2493; population, 419. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol; gross value, £650 with residence. The church is variously Norman, Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular. It contains a monument of 1621 and two piscinae. There is a Primitive Methodist chapel.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
Ancient County | Gloucestershire | |
Ecclesiastical parish | Rissington St. John the Baptist | |
Hundred | Slaughter | |
Poor Law union | Stow-on-the-Wold |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The Phillimore transcript of Marriages at Great Rissington 1538-1913, Gloucestershire is available to browse online.
The registers are perfect from the year 1538.
The Gloucestershire Parish Registers are available online at Ancestry, in association with Gloucestershire Archives.
Churches
Church of England
St. John the Baptist (parish church)
The church of St. John the Baptist is an ancient building of stone, in the Norman, Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular styles, consisting of chancel, nave, transepts, south porch and a central embattled tower containing 6 bells: in the south transept is a small monument to John Barnard, 1621, with kneeling figures in low relief of himself and his wife: the north transept retains a piscina and niche with traces of colour, and there are other traces round a window: the stained east window was erected as a memorial to Katherine Emily, wife of S. Lyle esq. of Londonderry, and daughter of the Rev. and Hon. H. Rice B.A. rector 1856-96: in the chancel is another piscina: since 1873, the tower, south transept and other portions of the fabric, have been thoroughly restored, and the church now affords sittings for 200 persons.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Great Rissington from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Rissington, Great (St. John the Baptist))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Gloucestershire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Great Rissington are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following newspapers covering Gloucestershire online:
- Gloucester Citizen
- Gloucester Journal
- Gloucestershire Chronicle
- Gloucestershire Echo
- Cheltenham Chronicle
- Cheltenham Looker-On
Visitations Heraldic
The Visitation of the county of Gloucester, 1623 is available on the Heraldry page.