Bromsgrove (St. John The Baptist)
The parish comprises 10,968 acres: the soil is in some parts fertile, in others of inferior quality. To the north of the town is Bromsgrove Lickey, a range of lofty hills, commanding an extensive and diversified prospect of the surrounding country; a considerable part, comprising a tract of 2000 acres, has been inclosed, and produces good crops of clover, turnips, and potatoes. A spring rising among these hills divides into two streams, one of which, flowing northward, joins the river Rea, and, uniting with the Trent, falls into the North Sea; the other, running into the Stour, joins the Severn, and empties itself into the Irish Sea. The living is a vicarage, valued in the king's books at £41. 8. 1½.; patrons and appropriators, the Dean and Chapter of Worcester, whose tithes have been commuted for £1200, and whose glebe consists of 75a. 3r. 22p.: the vicarial tithes have been commuted for £1100, and the glebe consists of 1a. 2r., with a house. The church is a very ancient structure, combining portions in the Norman style and the decorated and later English styles, of which last the tower and spire are fine specimens; the interior contains many interesting monuments. A district church was built at Catshill in 1837. There are places of worship for Baptists, Primitive Methodists, Independents, and Wesleyans; and a Roman Catholic chapel at Grafton, an extra-parochial liberty adjoining. A free grammar school was instituted, with an endowment of £7 per annum, by charter of Edward VI., confirmed by Queen Mary; and the original endowment was augmented with £50 per annum by Sir Thomas Cookes, Bart., of Bentley, who in 1714 founded six scholarships, of £50 per annum each, in Worcester College, Oxford, for this school and four others in the county; and six fellowships, of £150 per annum each, in the same college, to which, as vacancies occur, those who hold the scholarships succeed. Thomas Hawkes, in 1809, left £1000 four per cent. bank annuities for the benefit of the poor; and there are several other endowments. The union of Bromsgrove comprises 15 parishes or places, of which 11 are in the county of Worcester, 2 in that of Salop, and one in each of the counties of Stafford and Warwick; and contains a population of 22,357. At Dadford, two miles from the town, are the remains of a small priory of Præmonstratensian canons founded by Henry I., now part of a farmhouse. At Shepley are some traces of the Roman Ikeneld-street; near Gannow is a petrifying spring.
Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.