Upper Slaughter, Gloucestershire
Historical Description
Slaughter, Upper, a parish in Gloucestershire, 2 miles NNW of Bourton-on-the-Water station on the G.W.R., and 3½ miles SW of Stow-on-the-Wold. Post town, Bourton-on-the-Water (R.S.O.); money order office, Lower Slaughter; telegraph office, Bourton-on-the-Water. Acreage, 2003; population of the civil parish, 320; of the ecclesiastical, 301. There is a parish council of five members. The old manor house, now occupied as a farmhouse, is a fine Elizabethan structure, and was once the residence of the Slaughter family. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol; gross value, £130 with residence. The church is Norman and Early English. It has a north chapel, built in 1855, containing an altar-tomb to the Rev. F. E. Witts, rector of the parish. The chancel retains a piscina and sedilia, and there are brasses to the Slaughter family.
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 | Upper Slaughter St. Peter | |
| Hundred | Slaughter | |
| Poor Law union | Stow-on-the-Wold |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The Phillimore transcript of Marriages at Upper Slaughter 1538-1837, Gloucestershire is available to browse online.
The register, including Eyford, dates from the year 1538.
The Gloucestershire Parish Registers are available online at Ancestry, in association with Gloucestershire Archives.
Churches
Church of England
St. Peter (parish church)
The church of St. Peter is a building of stone, in the Norman and Early English styles, consisting of chancel, nave of three bays, north aisle, north chapel, south porch and an embattled western tower, with pinnacles, containing a clock and 5 bells: in the chapel, separated from the aisle by a stone screen, is an altar tomb to the Rev. F. E. Witts, late rector (and grandfather of the Rev. Francis Edward Broome Witts M.A., a later rector), who died in 1854, and in the chancel is a tablet to Andrew Wanley esq, of Eyford, dated 1688; and a monument to the Rev. Fernando Tracy Travell, a former rector, dated 1808: there are brasses to John Slaughter, ob. 1583; Eleanor, his wife, ob. 1597; and Paris, his son, ob. 1597: the south wall of the chancel retains a double piscina and sedilia: the stained east window was presented in 1882 by the late Rev. Edward Francis Witts, rector here from 1854, and his wife, and in 1889 two memorial windows were erected to him by his family: the church was restored in 1877, at a cost of £2,100, and has sittings for 250 persons.
Methodist
Primitive Methodist Chapel
The Primitive Methodist chapel was built in 1885
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 Upper Slaughter from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Slaughter, Upper (St. Peter))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Gloucestershire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Upper Slaughter 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.