Wheatenhurst, Gloucestershire

Historical Description

Wheatenhurst or Whitminster, a village, a parish, and the head of a poor-law union and petty sessional division, in Gloucestershire. The village stands near the Stroud Water Canal, the Gloucester and Berkeley Canal, and the river Severn, 3 miles NW of Stonehouse station on the M.R. and G.W.R., and 6 W by N of Stroud. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office, of the name of Whitminster, under Stonehouse. The parish comprises 1267 acres; population of the civil parish, 360; of the ecclesiastical, 357. There is a parish council consisting of six members. Whitminster House and Parklands are the chief residences. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol; net value, £102. The church is Early English, and was restored in 1884. The workhouse is at Eastington.

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	Wheatenhurst St. Andrew
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 1538.

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

Churches

Church of England

St. Andrew (parish church)

The church of St. Andrew, enlarged about 1850, is an ancient building in the Early English style, consisting of chancel, nave of three bays, north aisle, south porch, and an embattled western tower containing 6 bells, of which two were added in 1889, as also a clock chiming the quarters: the church was thoroughly restored in 1884-5, under the direction of the late Sir A. W. Blomfield M.A., A.R.A. architect, including the erection of a chancel arch, the addition of a vestry and organ chamber, and the reflooring of the interior and reseating it with oak at a total cost of about £2,000: in 1887 the east window was filled with stained glass, and in 1888 the two remaining chancel windows were also filled in, and at the same time the chancel walls were decorated in spirit-fresco: a new organ was built expressly for the church at a cost of £300: there are sittings for 200 persons.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Wheatenhurst from the following:

Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Wheatenhurst, or Whitminster (St. Andrew))

Land and Property

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

Maps

Online maps of Wheatenhurst 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:

Visitations Heraldic

The Visitation of the county of Gloucester, 1623 is available on the Heraldry page.