Stonehouse, Gloucestershire
Historical Description
Stonehouse, a village and a parish in Gloucestershire. The village stands adjacent to the Stroudwater Canal, 3 miles W of Stroud, and has a head post office and stations on the G.W.R. and M.R. The inhabitants are chiefly employed in the woollen manufacture, and there is a manufactory of bricks, tiles, and pottery. Fairs are held on 1 May and 11 Oct., and there are two banks, a working men's institute, with reading-room and library, and a cottagers' horticultural society. The parish contains also Ebley village, part of Cainscross, and Haywards Field, formerly extra-parochial. Acreage, 1874; population of the civil parish, 4352; of the ecclesiastical, 2008. Stonehonse Court is an old Elizabethan mansion, once visited by Queen Elizabeth. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol; net value, £334 with residence. Patron, the Crown. The church, with the exception of the tower, was rebuilt in 1854, and restored and enlarged in 1884. There are Congregational and Wesleyan chapels.
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 | Stonehouse St. Cyril | |
Hundred | Whitstone | |
Poor Law union | Stroud |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The Phillimore transcript of Marriages at Stonehouse 1558-1812, Gloucestershire is available to browse online.
The register dates from the year 1558.
The Gloucestershire Parish Registers are available online at Ancestry, in association with Gloucestershire Archives.
Churches
Church of England
St. Cyr (parish church)
The church of St. Cyr, rebuilt, with the exception of the tower, in 1854, at a cost of £2,297, is a building of stone, in the Norman and Perpendicular styles, consisting of chancel with aisle, nave of five bays, aisles, north and west porches, and a low Perpendicular western tower containing 6 bells: the stained east window was presented by the late Rev. Thomas Peters B.A. rector of Eastington from 1837: in 1884 the church was restored and enlarged by the addition of a chancel aisle and vestry cost a cost of upwards of £1,000, the vestry being erected at the joint cost of Mrs. Kingdon and the late Mrs. Bawdwen: the latter also presented a brass eagle lectern. The celebrated George Whitfield was curate of this parish about 1736 and commenced his career of preaching in the open air in the churchyard because the church could not contain the congregation, from which circumstances he himself first excused his irregularity: the church has 550 sittings.
Baptist
Baptist Chapel
Congregational
Congregational Chapel
The Congregational chapel, erected in 1820, has 450 sittings.
Methodist
Wesleyan Chapel
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Stonehouse from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Stonehouse (St. Cyril))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Gloucestershire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Stonehouse 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.