TEWKESBURY, Gloucestershire - Extract from National Gazetteer, 1868

"TEWKESBURY, a parish, market, and sessions town, municipal and parliamentary borough, locally in the hundred of Tewkesbury, county Gloucester, 10 miles N.E. of Gloucester, and 108 from London. It is a station on the Midland railway. The town, which is of great antiquity, is situated at the confluence of the rivers Avon and Severn, in the Vale of Evesham. It is the Teodechesberie of Domesday Survey, and has the remains of a mitred Benedictine Abbey, founded in 715 as a cell to Cranborne. In 1471 Edward IV. defeated the Lancastrians at Bloody Meadow, where Queen Margaret was taken prisoner, and her son slain.

In the civil war of Charles I. it was garrisoned by the royalists, but was surprised by Massie in 1644. The town consists of three principal streets, with several smaller streets running off in different directions, but all paved and lighted with gas. The houses are chiefly built of brick. The public edifices comprise the townhall, built in 1785 by Sir W. Codrington, whose portrait it contains; a new gaol, and house of correction; a market-house, on the site of the Tolsey; a mechanics' institute, library, and reading-rooms, a savings-bank, union poorhouse, house of industry at Holme Hill, a dispensary, three commercial branch banks, a small theatre, recently converted into a silk mill, and two iron bridges, the one over the Severn, of one arch, 179 feet span, and the other over the Avon.

There are manufactories of stockings, lace, and nails, also a tannery, corn mills, and malting establishments. It is a borough by prescription, and was incorporated by Elizabeth. Under the Municipal Act it is governed by a mayor, who is also returning officer, 4 aldermen, and 12 councillors, with the style of "bailiffs, burgesses, and commonalty". The borough has returned two members to parliament since 1609, and was extended by the Reform Act so as to include the whole of the parish. The area of the borough is 1,890 acres, and the municipal revenue about £900.

The living is a vicarage* in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol, value £313, in the patronage of the lord chancellor. The Abbey church, dedicated to St. Mary, is principally in the Anglo-Norman style of architecture, with a tower rising front the centre 300 feet high. It was partly restored in 1796. The ceiling is of stone, groined and panelled, and the walls are decorated with a genealogical series of portraits of the Clares, earls of Gloucester, Despencers, Beauchamps, and other benefactors to the abbey.

There is besides the district church of the Holy Trinity, erected in 1837, the living of which is a perpetual curacy, value £140, in the gift of trustees. The Roman Catholics, Independents, Wesleyans, Baptists, and Society of Friends, have chapels. The grammar school, founded in 1576, has an income from endowment of £55. There are besides a blue-coat school, with an endowment of £40, National, infant, and Dissenters' schools. The charities, including the school endowments, produce about £600 per annum.

A mineral spring, similar to that at Cheltenham, occurs at Walton-Cardiff. In the vicinity are Towbury and other Roman camps, and at the house of H. Brown, Esq., M.P., is the Shakespeare cup. Market days are Wednesday and Saturday, the former being chiefly for corn and cattle. Fairs are held on the second Monday in March, the second Wednesdays in April, June, August, and December, the 14th May, first Wednesday after the 4th September, and a pleasure fair on the 10th October, also statute fairs on the Wednesday before and the Wednesday after 10th October."

"MYTHE WITH MYTHE HOOK, a township in the parish of Tewkesbury, county Gloucester, 1 mile N. of Tewkesbury. It is situated between the rivers Severn and Avon."

"PARK, a hamlet in the parish of Tewkesbury, county Gloucester, 2 miles from Tewkesbury. It is joined with Southwick to form a township."

"SOUTHWICK, a township in the parish and borough of Tewkesbury, county Gloucester, 2 miles from Tewkesbury. It is in conjunction with the hamlet of Park."

[Description(s) from The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868)
Transcribed by Colin Hinson ©2003]