Kingscote

"KINGSCOTE, a parish in the upper division of the hundred of Berkeley, county Gloucester, 16 miles S. of Gloucester, 5 N.W. of Tetbury, and 7½ from Charfield railway station. Wooton-under-Edge is its post town. It is situated near the extremity of a branch of the Cotswolds, and is mentioned in Domesday Book as Chingescote. It came through the Fitzhardinges to the Kingscotes above 700 years ago. The soil is stone brash and loam, with subsoil oolite. There are several quarries of stone called "clayrag", in which numerous fossils are embedded, and which, when polished, resemble Derbyshire marble. A tributary of the river Frome has its source in this parish, which is indented with deep valleys, the slopes of which are clothed with beech trees of luxuriant growth.

The living is a curacy annexed to the rectory* of Beverstone, in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol. The church, dedicated to St. John the Evangelist, is an ancient stone structure with a low embattled tower containing two bells. It contains the cenotaph of the Kingscote family. There is a school, supported by subscription. Kingscote Hall is the principal residence. Earl Fitzhardinge Berkeley is lord of the manor and chief landowner. Fragments of tessellated pavements, coins, and other Roman antiquities, have been discovered."

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