Pitchcombe

PITCHCOMBE, a parish, in the union of Stroud, Middle division of the hundred of Dudstone and King's-Barton, E. division of the county of Gloucester, 1½ mile (S. W. by W.) from Painswick; containing 243 inhabitants. It comprises by measurement 209 acres, in nearly equal portions of arable and pasture: the soil is light, the surface hilly; and the neighbourhood abounds with quarries of stone of the oolite quality, used for building, but there is no quarry in the parish. A small manufactory of cloth, situated within the parish of Standish, but not far from the village, affords employment to some of the inhabitants. A road from Stroud here branches off in one direction to Gloucester, and in another to Painswick and Cheltenham. The living is a discharged rectory, united to that of Harescomb: certain impropriate tithes have been commuted for £5, and the rectorial for £48; the glebe comprises 3½ acres. The church, which forms a chaste specimen of the decorated English style, was built about 1819, on the site of a church erected in 1327, and occupies rising ground a short distance from the village. There is a place of worship for Independents.