Saul, Gloucestershire
Historical Description
Saul, a parish, with a village, in Gloucestershire, on the river Severn, at the junction of the Gloucester and Berkeley Canal with the Stroud Canal, 5 miles NW of Stonehouse. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Stonehouse. Acreage, with Fretherne, 1140; population of the civil parish, 854; of the ecclesiastical, 412. The civil parish is called Fretherne-with-Saul, and for parish council purposes is divided into two wards, Fretherne having two members and Saul four. The living of Saul is a rectory in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol, the incumbent having the great tithes, but out of them having to keep the chancel in repair. Patron, the Vicar of Standish. The church is old, and was repaired and enlarged about 1850. There is a Congregational chapel.
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 | Saul St. James | |
Hundred | Whitstone | |
Poor Law union | Wheatenhurst |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The register dates from the year 1560, but is not continuous, having suffered from submersion in a flood early in the 18th century.
The Gloucestershire Parish Registers are available online at Ancestry, in association with Gloucestershire Archives.
Churches
Church of England
St. James (parish church)
The church of St. James is an ancient edifice of stone in the Perpendicular and earlier styles, consisting of large chancel, nave of five bays, north aisle, south porch and an embattled western tower of the 15th century, containing one bell and a clock, placed in 1887: there is a memorial window to W. Clegram, of Saul Lodge, erected by subscription in 1863: the north aisle was added and the church enlarged and thoroughly restored in 1865, when a new chancel was built: there are sittings for 200 persons.
Congregational
Congregational Chapel
The Congregational chapel, erected in 1867 at a cost of £700, has seating for 200 persons.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Saul from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Saul (St. James))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Gloucestershire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Saul 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.