Bourton on the Hill, Gloucestershire

Historical Description

Bourton-on-the-Hill, a village and a parish in Gloucestershire. The village stands on the side of a hill, commanding a delightful prospect, 2 miles W of Moreton station on the G.W.R., and 4½ N by W of Stow-on-the-Wold, and has a post office under Moreton-in-the-Marsh, which is the money order and telegraph office. Acreage of parish, 2975; population, 506. Bourton House is the chief residence. Sir Thomas Overbury, who was poisoned in the Tower, was a native. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol; net value, £500 with residence. The church is a large massive building of the Perpendicular period, with an embattled western tower, and a piscina in the chancel. There are four almshouses.

Transcribed from The Comprehensive Gazetteer of England & Wales, 1894-5

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	Bourton-on-the-Hill St. Lawrence
Hundred	Tewkesbury
Poor Law union	Shipston

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Church Records

The register, which dates from the year 1554, records that Sir Thomas Overbury kt. who was poisoned in the Tower of London, September 15, 1613, and Sir Nicholas Overbury kt. who lived in the reigns of Elizabeth, James and Charles, were buried here in 1643, the latter being upwards of 100 years old.

The Gloucestershire Parish Registers are available online at Ancestry, in association with Gloucestershire Archives.

Churches

Church of England

St. Lawrence (parish church)

The church of St. Lawrence is a building of stone, in the Norman and Perpendicular styles, consisting of chancel, clerestoried nave of three bays, aisles, north and south porches and an embattled western tower containing a clock placed in 1904, at a cost of £110, and 6 bells: the south wall of the chancel retains a piscina, with canopy, and the piers of the south aisle are Norman: in 1889 the chancel was restored and reseated with oak benches, the organ renovated and a new oak pulpit placed in the nave, at a cost of £150, and in 1893 the north gallery and the old high pews were removed and the church was reseated with open oak sittings at a cost of aboub £450: the east window was filled with stained glass in 1912 by Herbert D'Esté East esq. in memory of the late Sir James Buller East bart.: there are 300 sittings.

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 Bourton on the Hill from the following:

Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Bourton-on-the-Hill (St. Lawrence))

Land and Property

The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Gloucestershire is available to browse.

Maps

Online maps of Bourton on the Hill 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:

Visitations Heraldic

The Visitation of the county of Gloucester, 1623 is available on the Heraldry page.