Purton, Wiltshire

Historical Description

Purton, a village and a parish in Wiltshire. The village stands on an eminence, 1 mile W of the North Wiltshire Canal, and 4½ miles NW of Swindon. It has a station on the G.W.R., 81 miles from London, and a post, money order, and telegraph office under Swindon. The parish contains also Braydon hamlet and Cricklade Workhouse, Acreage, 6465; population of the civil parish, 2432; of the ecclesiastical, 2495. There is a parish council consisting of fifteen members. Fairs are held on the Tuesday before 6 May and the Friday after 19 Sept, The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol; gross value, £540 with residence. Patron, the Earl of Shaftesbury. The church is a handsome edifice with two towers and a spire, and contains monuments of the Maskelynes and others; it has been well restored. There are Congregational, Wesleyan, and Methodist chapels, a cottage hospital, and a workmen's institute.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

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

Church Records

The Phillimore transcript of Marriages at Purton 1558-1812, Wiltshire is available to browse online.

Findmypast, in association with the Wiltshire Record Office, have the following parish records online for Purton:

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Purton from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Purton (St. Mary))

Maps

Online maps of Purton 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 Wiltshire papers online:

• Salisbury and Winchester Journal
• Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette
• Wiltshire Independent
• Swindon Advertiser and North Wilts Chronicle