Harescombe, Gloucestershire
Historical Description
Harescombe, a parish in Gloucestershire, 2½ miles SE of Haresfield station on the M.R., and 3½ NNW of Stroud. Post town, Stroud. Acreage, 1352; population, 309. Harescombe Grange and Winstones are the chief residences. There was a castle here formerly, and a portion of the moat can still be traced. The land is mostly in pasture. The living is a rectory, united with the rectory of Pitchcombe, in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol; value, £174. The church is Decorated, was restored in 1871, and contains an ancient font, piscina, and a carved oak pulpit of the time of James I.
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 | Harescomb St. John the Baptist | |
Hundred | Dudstone and Kings Barton | |
Poor Law union | Wheatenhurst |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The register dates from the year 1741, but transcripts of earlier registers dating from 1569 are preserved in the Diocesan Registry at Gloucester.
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 Early English and Decorated styles, consisting of chancel, nave, south porch and a singular and almost unique turret at the east end of the nave, containing 2 bells, one of which was recast, in 1884: the ancient font consists of a massive circular bowl, standing on clustered pillars: there are two piscinae and an oak pulpit of the Jacobean period; the church was restored in 1871 at a cost of £470, and has 100 sittings.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Harescombe from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Harescomb (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 Harescombe 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.