Place:Stow on the Wold, 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

Stow-on-the-Wold is a market town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England, on top of an 800-foot (244 m) hill at the junction of main roads through the Cotswolds, including the Fosse Way (A429), which is of Roman origin. The town was founded by Norman lords to absorb trade from the roads converging there. Fairs have been held by royal charter since 1330; a horse fair is still held on the edge of the town in May and October each year.

For several centuries up to 1894 the ancient parish was divided administratively into three parts, namely, the town of Stow and the hamlets of Maugersbury and Donnington. (Source:A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 6/Slaughter hundred, p 142)

Stow on the Wold was an urban district from 1894 until 1935. In 1935 it became part of the North Cotswold Rural District.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Stow-on-the-Wold.

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Stow on the Wold from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"STOW-ON-THE-WOLD, a small town, a parish, a [registration] sub-district, and a [registration] district, in Gloucester[shire]. The town stands on the Fosse way, on the summit of a hill, 1 mile N of the Bourton-on-the-Water railway, and 4¼ SSW of Moreton-in-the-Marsh; is irregularly built; commands extensive views; is a seat of petty sessions and county-courts, and a polling place; and has a post-office‡ under Moreton-in-the-Marsh, a [railway] station with telegraph, a banking office, a hotel, a police-office, a public reading room, an ancient church, three dissenting chapels, a grammar-school and alms houses with £39 a year from endowment, other charities £137, a workhouse, a weekly market on Thursday, and fairs on 12 May and 24 Oct.

"The parish includes the hamlets of Donnington and Mangersbury, and comprises 3,130 acres. Real property: £8,612. Population in 1851: 2,250; in 1861: 2,077. Houses: 1,463. The manor belonged formerly to Evesham abbey; and, with Mangersbury House, belongs now to J.Chamberlayne, Esq. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol. Value: £525. Patron: the Rev. R. W. Hippisley.

Registration Districts

Stow on the Wold Registration District, Gloucestershire (1837 - 1937)
North Cotswold Registration District (1937 - 2006)
Gloucestershire Registration District (2006 - )

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:

• Stow-on-the-Wold from A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 6/Slaughter hundred 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