Chedworth (St. Andrew)

CHEDWORTH (St. Andrew), a parish, in the union of Northleach, hundred of Rapsgate, E. division of the county of Gloucester, 4½ miles (W. S. W.) from Northleach; containing 983 inhabitants. It comprises by computation 5000 acres, the soil of which is chiefly light, and good barley land. The living is a vicarage, valued in the king's books at £7. 8. 4., and in the patronage of Queen's College, Oxford. The vicarial tithes have been commuted for £278. 7., with a glebe of 110 acres; and the impropriate for £371. 2. payable to the master, and £185. 11. to the usher, of Northleach grammar school: the masters also have 118¼ acres of glebe. The church contains a handsome stone pulpit, and is supposed to have been built in the reign of Henry VI. In 1760, a Roman hypocaust was discovered at Lestercomb Bottom, in the parish, with a brick floor and pillars, a spring, and a cistern, the bricks of which bore the inscription "a'rviri." On a hill a little above is a large tumulus, in which, on the removal of a stone set upright at its mouth, a great quantity of human bones was exposed. Chedworth gave the title of Baron to the family of Howe, which became extinct on the death of John, Lord Chedworth, in 1804.