Place:Tisbury, Wiltshire, England

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source: Family History Library Catalog

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Tisbury is a large village and civil parish approximately 13 miles (21 km) west of Salisbury in the English county of Wiltshire. With a population at the 2011 UK census of 2,253 it is a centre for communities around the upper River Nadder and Vale of Wardour. The parish includes the hamlets of Chicksgrove and Wardour.

Tisbury is the largest settlement within the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (larger nearby settlements such as Salisbury and Shaftesbury are just outside it).

The historic parish covered a large area. In 1835 it was divided into three parishes: East Tisbury (to the north), West Tisbury (to the west) and Wardour (to the south). In 1927 East Tisbury and Wardour were united as Tisbury civil parish.

History

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

There are known early references between 710 and 716 to Wintra, Abbot of Tisbury, and in 759 monks of Tisbury are mentioned in a grant of land to Abbot Ecgnold and his familia (community) at Tisbury Minster. The monastery may have been founded as early as 705. The monastery may have been located near an old cemetery discovered north of Church Street.

This Saxon settlement came into the possession of Shaftesbury Abbey across the county border in Dorset. The administration centre was the monastic grange, still called Abbey Grange Place Farm. Its thatched tithe barn, one of its timbers dated by dendrochronology to 1279, a Grade I listed building, (photograph in Wikipedia) bears the largest thatched roof in England. It is now used as a multi-purpose gallery and arts centre, managed by Messums Wiltshire. The old Wardour Castle lies approximately 2.5 miles (4.0 km) to the southwest of Tisbury.

Some idea of the population of the area in the 14th century can be found by looking at the number assessed as being liable to the poll tax of 1377. Every lay person over the age of 14 years who was not a beggar had to pay a groat (4d) to the Crown. The number of taxpayers in Hatch, East and West (in Tisbury) was 152, and in Tisbury it was 281.

The village's 13th-century prosperity came from the quarries that produced stone for the building of Salisbury Cathedral, and from the wool that supported a local cloth industry. The village suffered a serious setback with the Black Death in the mid-14th century but slowly recovered. To the southwest of the village center is the remains of the village of Wyck, abandoned at some time in the Middle Ages.

From 1861 the room above a building near to St. John the Baptist parish church, known as The Rank, was used as a glove factory. It employed 36 women and production continued until the early 1970s. In 1885 Archibald Beckett built a brewery in the village and carried out other improvements, including the construction of a new road through the village, the present day High Street.

Research Tips

• Victoria County History - Wiltshire - Vol 13, pp195-248 - Parish: Tisbury. British History Online. University of London.
• From this Ancestry page you can browse the Wiltshire parishes which have parish register transcripts online, quite often from very early dates. However, reading the early ones requires skill and patience. Transcriptions should also be in FamilySearch.
• A further collection of online source references will be found on the county page for Wiltshire.