Place:Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Family History Library Catalog

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Winchcombe is a Cotswold town which has been since 1974 in the local authority district of Tewkesbury, in Gloucestershire, England. Its population according to the 2001 census was 4,379. Note that it was formerly often named "Winchcomb".

From 1894 until 1935 Winchcombe was one of Gloucestershire's Rural Districts. In 1935 the district was abolished and the area transferred to Cheltenham Rural District for the period up to 1974.

A 19th century description

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

"WINCHCOMB, a small town, a parish, and a [registration] district, in Gloucester. The town stands on the river Isborne, under the Cotswolds, at the terminus of the Winchcomb and Midland railway, 6¾ miles NE of Cheltenham; was known, at Domesday, as Wincelcombe; had a mitred Benedictine abbey, founded in 798 by King Kenulph, destroyed by the Danes, and rebuilt as a secular college in 985 by Bishop Oswald; was a residence and the burial-place of King Kenulph; numbers amongst its natives Bishop Tideman and the physician Merret; is a borough by prescription, with two bailiffs and eight burgesses, possessing little jurisdiction; is also a seat of petty sessions and county courts; carries on industry in a silk factory, a large paper mill, a tan-yard and skin-yard, and four flour-mills; and has a post-office under Cheltenham, a banking office, a police station, a neat recent town hall, a reading room, a mechanics' institute, an early English and Tudor parish church, Baptist and Wesleyan chapels, two endowed schools with £70 a year, a national school, a workhouse, charities £48, a weekly market on Saturday, and five annual fairs.

"The parish includes eleven hamlets, and comprises 5,700 acres. Real property: £13,486. Population in 1851: 2,824; in 1861: 2,937. Houses: 634. Sudeley Castle, Postlip Hall, Corndean Hall, and the Abbey are chief residences. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol. Value: £200. Patron: Lord Sudeley. A chapel of ease and a Wesleyan chapel are at Gretton; and a ruined Norman Chapel is at Postlip.

For a description of the registration district, see the District page. Postlip and Gretton have both been redirected here.

Registration Districts

• Winchcombe Registration District (1837 - 1937)
• Cheltenham 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:

• 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. Do 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
• Unfortunately, A History of the County of Gloucester in the Victoria County History series provided by the website British History Online does not cover this part of the county
• Ancestry.co.uk has recently added Gloucestershire Burials, 1813-1988; Confirmations, 1834-1913; Baptisms, 1813-1913; Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1813; and Marriages and Banns, 1754-1938. (entry dated 1 Aug 2015)