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Stanley St. Leonard (St. Swithin)

STANLEY ST. LEONARD (St. Swithin), a parish, and formerly a market-town, in the union of Stroud, Lower division of the hundred of Whitstone, E. division of the county of Gloucester, 4¼ miles (W. S. W.) from Stroud; containing 864 inhabitants. This place was a considerable town before 1686, when a fire destroyed most of its buildings. Fairs are still held on St. Swithin's day and Nov. 6th; the market was held on Saturday, under a grant of Edward II. renewed in 1620. The parish comprises by measurement 1025 acres; the soil is generally a stiff clay, the surface boldly undulated, and the scenery richly embellished with wood. In the village is an extensive manufacture of woollencloth. The Gloucester and Bristol railway passes through the parish, and the Stroud navigation within a mile of it. The living is a perpetual curacy; net income, £200; patron, the Rev. T. P. Jones. The tithes were commuted for land and a money payment in 1830; the glebe comprises 130 acres. The church is an ancient cruciform structure, partly in the early and partly in the later English style, with a low tower in the centre, singularly constructed with double walls having a passage and recesses between them. It belonged to a priory of Benedictine monks, dedicated to St. Leonard, founded here in 1146 as a cell to the abbey of St. Peter, Gloucester, and which at the Dissolution possessed a revenue of £126. 9. 8.: there are considerable remains of the buildings, of which the kitchen is now a dairy.

Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.

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