Kingscote (St. John the Baptist)

KINGSCOTE (St. John the Baptist), a parish, in the union of Tetbury, Upper division of the hundred of Berkeley, W. division of the county of Gloucester, 8 miles (S. S. W.) from Stroud; containing 295 inhabitants. The parish is situated near the extremity of a branch of the Cotswold hills, and comprises 1810a. 3r. 23p., of which 665 acres are arable, 760 pasture, and about 385 woodland. Its soil is principally a light stone brash; the surface is indented with deep valleys, whose acclivities are clothed with beech-trees of luxuriant growth. There are some quarries of stone called clayrag, which is full of embedded petrifactions, and when polished resembles the Derbyshire marble. A stream, tributary to the river Frome, has its source in the parish. The living is annexed to the rectory of Beverstone; the tithes have been commuted for £159. 18., and the glebe comprises one acre. The church is a small edifice, consisting of a nave, with a low embattled tower; and contains the cenotaph of the Kingscote family, proprietors of the manor since the Conquest, when it was given to their ancestor Nigel de Kingscote. Fragments of tessellated pavement, coins, and other relics of antiquity, have been discovered.