Place:Churchdown, Gloucestershire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Churchdown is a village in Gloucestershire, England, situated between Gloucester and Cheltenham in the south of the Tewkesbury Borough. Churchdown is renowned for its convenient bus routes.

The village is unusual in having two centres. The older (Brookfield or "village") centre is in Church Road near St Andrew's Church; the more modern centre is in St John's Avenue near St John's Church. Churchdown is a relatively large village, with a population of 11,261 (2001), reducing to 10,990 at the 2011 census. The village has a size of approximately 16.5 km² (exactly 4,076 acres). Accordingly, the population density is 666 persons/km².

Historic Buildings

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Churchdown has several interesting old structures including the Old School House on The Green, where the first village school was held, Ye Old House on Sandfield Road (thought to have been built in the 16th century), Dunstan Cottage in Chapel Hay Lane and The Cottage on Oldbury Orchard.

On The Green stands a house where Beatrix Potter stayed, when she visited Gloucester in 1901, hence her famous story "The Tailor of Gloucester".

Registration Districts

Gloucester (1837 - 1937)
Gloucester Rural (1937 - 1974)
Gloucester (post-1974) (1974 - 2006)
Gloucestershire (2006 - )

See also Hucclecote which is very close to Churchdown.

Research Tips

• Gloucestershire Archives in Gloucester is where paper and microfilm copies of all records for this part of Gloucestershire are stored.

Online sources which may also be helpful:

• A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 4, the City of Gloucester in the Victoria County History series provided by the website British History Online
• GENUKI gives pointers to other archive sources as well as providing some details on each parish in the county. The emphasis here is on ecclesiastical parishes (useful before 1837)
• A listing of all the Registration Districts in England and Wales since their introduction in 1837 and tables of the parishes that were part of each district and the time period covered with detailed notes on changes of parish name, mergers, etc. Respect the copyright on this material.
• The FamilySearch Wiki for Gloucestershire provides a similar but not identical series of webpages to that provided by GENUKI
• A Vision of Britain through Time has a group of pages of statistical facts for almost every parish in the county