Sudeley Manor, Gloucestershire

Description
Sudeley Manor, a parish in Gloucestershire, half a mile SE of Winchcomb, and 7 1/4 miles NE of Cheltenham. Post town, Winchcomb (R.S.O.) Acreage, 1864; population of the civil parish, 87; of the ecclesiastical, 101. Sudeley Castle was built in the time of Henry VI. by Boteler Lord Sudeley. It occupies the site of a previous castle built soon after the Norman Conquest. It was taken from Boteler by Edward IV. Edward VI. granted it to Sir Thomas Seymour, afterwards Lord Seymour of Sudeley, who married Catherine Parr, the widowed queen of Henry VIII. Queen Catherine died here in 1548, and was buried in the church. Queen Mary granted it to Sir John Brydges, created Lord Chandos of Sudeley in 1554. It was garrisoned for the king in the Civil Wars of Charles I., was taken by the Parliamentarians, and dismantled. It belongs now to the Dent family, and has been partially restored as a residence. It gives the title of Baron to the family of Hanbury Tracy. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol. The church was erected about 1460, but being desecrated by the Parliamentary forces in 1643 after the surrender of the castle, went into decay; a side chapel, however, always served as a parish church. The church was restored in 1858-63 by Sir G. Gilbert Scott, and contains a beautiful monument to Queen Catherine Parr.