Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire
Historical Description
Chipping-Sodbury, a small market-town, the head of a poor law union and county court district, and a parish in Gloucestershire. The town stands on a declivity, adjacent to the river Frome, 2 miles SE of Yate station on the M.R., and 10½ NE of Bristol, and has a head post office. It is governed by a bailiff and 10 burgesses, and has a town hall, a police station and police court, a bank, a reading room and library, and an endowed grammar school. A cattle market is held on the first and third Tuesday in the month. The church is Perpendicular, was restored in 1869, and contains an old stone pulpit, a carved oak chancel screen, and some stained windows. There are Roman Catholic and Baptist chapels, and a meeting-house for the Society of Friends. The workhouse is at Yate. The parish comprises 107 acres; population, 1028. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol; net value, £285. Patron, the Vicar of Old Sodbury. There is a cemetery near the church, under the management of a burial board.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
Ancient County | Gloucestershire | |
Ecclesiastical parish | Chipping Sodbury St. John the Baptist | |
Hundred | Grumbalds-Ash | |
Poor Law union | Chipping-Sodbury |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The Phillimore transcript of Marriages at Chipping Sodbury 1661-1812, Gloucestershire is available to browse online.
The parish register dates from the year 1661.
The Gloucestershire Parish Registers are available online at Ancestry, in association with Gloucestershire Archives.
Churches
Church of England
St. John the Baptist (parish church)
The church of St. John the Baptist is an ancient edifice of stone in the Perpendicular style, consisting of chancel with aisles, nave, aisles, Lady chapel and south chapel, south porch and an embattled western tower, with pinnacles, containing 6 bells: during the restoration an ancient stone pulpit surmounted by a finely carved stone canopy was discovered, which is now in use: a carved oak screen separates the chancel from its aisles, and in 1893 an oak screen with gates was erected between the chancel and nave in memory of Richard Arnold: there is a reredos of alabaster and several stained windows: over the porch are figures of St. John the Baptist, the patron saint, Our Lord and St. John the Evangelist: below the pulpit is a stone seat, supposed to be of the 13th century: the east and west windows are stained, and there are memorial windows, including those to Mr. John Arnold. d. 1895, and Mr. John Wheeler, d. 1896. The church was restored in 1869, at a cost of £5,000, under the direction of the late Mr. G. E. Street R.A. and in 1906 the tower was restored to its original form, at a cost of oyer £600: there are sittings for 515 persons. In 1865 an acre of land, situated a short distance north of the church, was added to the churchyard, at a cost of £500, and consecrated January 13th in that year, and is under the control of the vicar and churchwardens.
Baptist
Baptist Chapel
The Baptist chapel, rebuilt in 1819, has 270 sittings.
Society of Friends
Society of Friends Meeting House
The meeting house for the Society of Friends, has 100 sittings.
Roman Catholic
St. Laurence
The Catholic chapel of St. Laurence, a small building in High street, was consecrated in the year 1838, and will seat 80 persons.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Chipping Sodbury from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Sodbury, Chipping (St. John the Baptist))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Gloucestershire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Chipping Sodbury are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following newspapers covering Gloucestershire online:
- Gloucester Citizen
- Gloucester Journal
- Gloucestershire Chronicle
- Gloucestershire Echo
- Cheltenham Chronicle
- Cheltenham Looker-On
Visitations Heraldic
The Visitation of the county of Gloucester, 1623 is available on the Heraldry page.