Ampney Crucis, Gloucestershire
Historical Description
Ampney-Crucis, a village and a parish in Gloucestershire, on Ampney brook, near Ermine Street, 2½ miles E of Cirencester. The parish contains the hamlet of Alcott-End, and has a post office under Cirencester, the money order and telegraph office. Acreage, 3097; population of the civil parish, 490; of the ecclesiastical, 488. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol; net value, £130. The Church of the Holy Cross (Sanctae Crucis) is an ancient structure in the Early English style, with an embattled western tower, and has been carefully restored. It contains a white marble monument to Viscount Downe, and to members of the Pleydell family, to whom the manor once belonged, and also stained memorial windows. A free school, founded and endowed in 1722 by Sir Robert Pleydell, has an income of £80.
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 | Ampney-Crucis The Holy Rood | |
Hundred | Crowthorne and Minety | |
Poor Law union | Cirencester |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The Phillimore transcript of Marriages at Ampney Crucis 1561-1837, Gloucestershire is available to browse online.
The parish register dates from 1566.
The Gloucestershire Parish Registers are available online at Ancestry, in association with Gloucestershire Archives.
Churches
Church of England
The Holy Rood or Sanctae Crucis (parish church)
The church of the Holy Rood, or Sanctae Crucis, is a building of stone in the Early English and Perpendicular styles, consisting of chancel, nave, transepts, south porch, and an embattled western tower containing 5 bells: there are several tablets to the Pleydell and Blackwell families, and eight stained window's, the east; window being a memorial to Mrs. Elizabeth Dunn, and there are others to the Gifford family: the chancel retains a piscina, and in the north transept is a piscina and a tomb of marble to a member of the Lloyd family, who once held this manor: the bowl of the font is Early Norman: there are sittings for 200 persons. In the churchyard is a cross, said to have been erected by Abbot Parlier at the close of the 14th century; its height is about 10 feet and the head is adorned with four niches, flanked by richly carved buttresses, and containing sculptured figures representing the Virgin and Child, a crucifix, with figures of the Holy Virgin and St. John on either side, a saint in deacon's vestments and Robert Fitz-Hamon.
Methodist
Primitive Methodist Chapel
The Primitive Methodist chapel is an iron building, erected in 1902, and will seat 150.
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 Ampney Crucis from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Ampney-Crucis (The Holy Rood))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Gloucestershire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Ampney Crucis 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.