Sharpness, Gloucestershire
Historical Description
Sharpness, a village and a seaport in Berkeley parish, Gloucestershire, on a ness or promontory on the left bank of the river Severn, at the mouth of the Gloucester and Berkeley Ship Canal, 2½ miles N by W of Berkeley, 16 S of Gloucester, and 22 N by E of Bristol. It has a station on the Severn and Wye and Severn Bridge railway, and a post, money order, and telegraph office under Berkeley. It stands at the eastern extremity of the great Severn Bridge, which was constructed in 1879 by the Midland Railway Company at a cost of £200,000, to bring the Gloucester and Bristol branch of that system into connection with the Severn and Wye railway and the Great Western railway. The bridge is 4162 feet in length, and consists of 22 arches, the widest of which are 327 feet, with a headway of 70 feet above high water mark; it includes a swing bridge 200 feet wide over the canal. There is a railway station, called Severn Bridge, at the W end of the bridge. There are extensive docks at Sharpness, connected by a cutting with the Ship Canal. Grain, timber, and petroleum are imported, and coal, salt, and pitch are exported. For parish council purposes Sharpness is in the civil parish of Hinton. There are an English church and Wesleyan and Congregational chapels.
Church Records
The Gloucestershire Parish Registers are available online at Ancestry, in association with Gloucestershire Archives.
Churches
Church of England
St. Andrew
The iron church of St. Andrew was erected in 1877 at a cost of £500: a new organ was provided in 1900 at a cost of £150.
Congregational
Union Chapel
The Congregational and Baptist Union chapel was erected in 1901-2 at a cost of £2,228.
Methodist
Wesleyan Methodist Chapel
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Gloucestershire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Sharpness 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.