Description
Newent, a small market-town, the head of a poor-law union, county court district, and petty sessional division, and a parish in Gloucestershire. The town stands in Dean Forest, 2 1/2 miles E of the boundary with Herefordshire, 8 S of Ledbury, 9 NW of Gloucester, and 9 E of Ross, with a station on the Gloucester and Ledbury section of the G.W.R., and a post, money order, and telegraph office under Gloucester. Newent dates from the time when a road was made across its site from Gloucester into Wales ; was originally called New Inn, from a single house which formed its nucleus, and grew to such importance as to have nine streets and lanes. It became a borough, governed by a bailiff, and passed afterwards into a state of decadence; consists now of two principal streets, with many well-built houses and some good shops; and is a seat of petty sessions and county courts. The market-house is a Tudor timber structure of the 16th century, and was restored in 1864. The church is a spacious and handsome edifice, originally erected about 1590. It was rebuilt in 1679 and restored in 1879-84. It has a tower and spire 153 feet high, and contains many interesting monuments. There are Congregational and Wesleyan chapels. The chief buildings are the Sessions House, the Temperance Hall, used for concerts, &c., and the Albion Club, which has a library and reading-room. The Workhouse was built in 1867. There are ten almshouses. The weekly market is now discontinued; a market for stock is held on the first Tuesday in the mouth, and an onion fair on the Friday after 19 Sept. There are brick and drain-pipe works, a tannery, a saw mill, and flour mills in the neighbourhood. Some trade is done in cider and perry, produced within the parish and held in great repute. The town was garrisoned for the king during the Civil War.
The parish contains also the tithings of Malswick, Cngley, Compton, and Boulsdon and Killcot. Acreage, 8091; population of the civil parish, 2605; of the ecclesiastical, 2072. There is a parish council consisting of eleven members. It also sends four members to the district council. Newent Court and Stardens are the chief residences. A .Benedictine priory was founded at New Court by Roger Montgomery as a cell to Cormeille in Normandy, was given at the suppression of alien monasteries to Fotheringay Nunnery, and has left some vestiges. A Roman settlement was at Coneygore. Coal was once worked in Boulsdon. A mineral spring, of similar quality to the springs of Cheltenham and Gloucester, is near the town. Some splendid scenery lies around the spring, and Slay Hill, formerly called Yartledon Hill, situated in the SW of the parish, commands a magnificent view. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol; net value, £541 with residence. Patron, St Catherine's College, Cambridge. Part of the ecclesiastical parish of Gorsley, with Cliffords Mesne, is in this parish.
Villages, Hamlets, &c.
