Place:Stratford upon Avon, Warwickshire, England

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source: Family History Library Catalog

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Stratford upon Avon is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford on Avon District, in the county of Warwickshire, England. It is located on the River Avon, 91 miles (146 km) northwest of London, 22 miles (35 km) southeast of Birmingham, and 8 miles (13 km) southwest of Warwick. The estimated population in 2007 was 25,500, increasing to 27,445 at the 2011 UK Census.

The town is a popular tourist destination owing to its status as birthplace of English playwright and poet William Shakespeare, and receives approximately 2.5 million visitors a year. The Royal Shakespeare Company resides in Stratford's Royal Shakespeare Theatre.

History

Stratford was originally inhabited by Anglo-Saxons and remained a village until 1196 when the lord of the manor, John of Coutances, set out plans to develop it into a town. In that same year, Stratford was granted a charter from King Richard I to hold a weekly market in the town, giving it its status as a market town. As a result, even at this early date, Stratford experienced an increase in trade and commerce as well as urban expansion.

In 1196 John of Coutances laid out a new town plan based on a grid system to expand Stratford and which allowed people to rent property in order to trade within the town. This charter, together with the one giving permission to hold a weekly market, were the foundations of Stratford's transformation from a village to a town, making the town of Stratford over 800 years old.

By 1252 the town had approximately 240 burgages (properties rented out by the town), as well as shops, stalls and other buildings. Stratford's new workers established a guild known as the Guild of the Holy Cross for their business and religious requirements.

A new masonry arch bridge called Clopton Bridge (named after Hugh Clopton who paid for its construction) was built in 1480 to replace the earlier wooden bridge which had been the only means of crossing the Avon and allowing access to and from the area to the south. This improved Stratford's position as a market for Cotswold sheep and their by-products such as meat, wool and leather.

Despite Stratford's increase in trade, it barely grew between the middle of the 13th century and the end of the 16th century, with a survey of the town showing 217 houses belonged to the lord of the manor in 1590. Growth continued to be slow throughout the 17th century, with hearth tax returns showing that at most there were approximately 429 houses in the town by 1670. However, more substantial expansion began following several enclosure acts in the late 18th century.

Before the dominance of road and rail, Stratford had a gateway to the network of British canals. The Stratford-upon-Avon Canal, which was built between 1793 and 1816, runs for 25.5 miles (41.0 km) in total, and consists of two sections. The dividing line is at Kingswood Junction, which gives access to the Grand Union Canal. The Stratford-upon-Avon canal connects the Worcester and Birmingham Canal at Kings Norton in the southern part of Birmingham to the River Avon at Stratford-upon-Avon. With the growth of land-based travel, the canal became less and less used and unnavigable throughout the period 1850-1960, but has since been restored and is again open for pleasure boats and barges.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Stratford upon Avon. And linked articles.

Stratford upon Avon became a Municipal Borough in 1835 and the urban centre of the non-metropolitan Stratford on Avon District in 1974. Throughout the period prior to 1835 it was part of the ancient parish of Old Stratford which also contained a number of smaller villages and hamlets. Its parish church was the Church of the Holy Trinity, situated on the banks of the River Avon, which also served Old Stratford.

Research Tips

• GENUKI main page for Warwickshire provides information on various topics covering the whole of the county, and also a link to a list of parishes. Under each parish there is a list of the settlements within it and brief description of each. This is a list of pre-1834 ancient or ecclesiastical parishes but there are suggestions as to how to find parishes set up since then. GENUKI provides references to other organizations who hold genealogical information for the local area. There is no guarantee that the website has been kept up to date and therefore the reader should check additional sources if possible.
• Warwickshire and West Midland family history societies are listed in GENUKI.
• The FamilyTree Wiki has a series of pages similar to those provided by GENUKI which may have been prepared at a later date and from more recent data. The wiki has a link to English Jurisdictions 1851. There is a list of all the parishes in existence at that date with maps indicating their boundaries. The website is very useful for finding the ecclesiastical individual parishes within large cities and towns.
• A Vision of Britain through Time, Warwickshire, section "Units and Statistics" leads to analyses of population and organization of the county from about 1800 through 1974. There are pages available for all civil parishes, municipal boroughs and other administrative divisions. Descriptions provided are usually based on a gazetteer of 1870-72 which often provides brief notes on the economic basis of the settlement and significant occurences through its history.
• The two maps below indicate the boundaries between parishes, etc., but for a more detailed view of a specific area try a map from this selection. The oldest series are very clear at the third magnification offered. Comparing the map details with the GENUKI details for the same area is well worthwhile.

• Map of Warwickshire illustrating urban and rural districts in 1900 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time. Parish boundaries and settlements within parishes are shown.
• Map of Warwickshire urban and rural districts in 1944 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time. Parish boundaries and settlements within parishes are shown. This is not a repeat of the first map. There were a number of changes to urban and rural district structure in the 1930s.

• A map of the ancient divisions named "hundreds" is to be found in A Vision of Britain through Time. It shows the detached sections of Warwickshire as they were in 1832. These detached sections have now been moved into the counties that surrounded them.
• As of October 2016 Warwickshire Parish Registers, 1535-1984 are available to search online on FamilySearch
• As of September 2018 TheGenealogist has added over 1.5 million individuals to its Warwickshire Parish Record Collection and so increases the coverage of this Midland county for family researchers to find their ancestors baptisms, marriages and burials. These records are released in association with Warwickshire County Record Office and have the benefit of high quality images to complement the transcripts, making them a valuable resource for those with ancestors from this area. These are available to Genealogist Diamond Subscription holders.
• The website British History Online provides seven volumes of the Victoria County History Series on Warwickshire. The first (Vol 2) covers the religious houses of the county; Volumes 3 through 6 provide articles the settlements in each of the hundreds in turn, and Volumes 7 and 8 deal with Birmingham and Coventry respectively. References to individual parishes will be furnished as time permits.
• Stratford upon Avon, Warwickshire in A Vision of Britain Through Time
• Victoria County History - Warwickshire - Vol 6, pp 221-234 - Parish: Stratford upon Avon. British History Online. University of London (London, 1951). Followed by six further chapters on Stratford.

Image Gallery

Town Centre

Shakespeare's Birthplace

Holy Trinity Church