Leigh, Gloucestershire

Historical Description

Leigh, a parish in Gloucestershire, on the river Severn and the Coombe Canal, 4½ miles SSW of Tewkesbury, and 5¼ NW by W of Cheltenham. It contains the hamlet of Evington, and has a post and telegraph office at Coombe Hill, under Cheltenham; money order office, Cheltenham. Acreage, 1504; population, 337. The manor belongs to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster. Much of the land is subject to frequent inundations. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol; value, £231. Patron, the Lord Chancellor. The church consists of nave, small south transept, and chancel, with an embattled tower, and is ancient.

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	Leigh St. James
Hundred	Westminster
Poor Law union	Tewkesbury

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

Church Records

The parish register dates from the year 1509 for baptisms and 1560 for marriages and burials.

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

Churches

Church of England

Mission Church, Coombe Hill

The Mission church at Coombe Hill, erected in 1890, is a building of wood and granolith, and will seat 90 persons.

St. Catherine (parish church)

The church, now called St. Catherine's, is an edifice of stone, in the Perpendicular style, and consists of chancel, nave, small south transept, south porch and an embattled western tower containing a clock and 6 bells, an additional bell being hung in 1908 at a cost of £60: there are several very ancient mural tablets: the east window is stained, and there is one other: a new organ was provided in 1901 at a cost of £200: the church was restored in 1885, at the cost of £1,000, and affords sittings for 152 persons.

Methodist

Wesleyan Chapel

The Wesleyan chapel here was built in 1887.

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 Leigh from the following:

Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Leigh (St. James))

Land and Property

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

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.