Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for SOUTHAM

SOUTHAM, a small town, a parish, a district, and a division in Warwick. The town stands on a branch of the river Ichene, 2¾ miles NE of Harbury r. station, and 7½ miles ESE of Leamington; was known, at Domesday, as Sucham; gave a night's lodging to Charles I. and his two sons, on the eve of the battle of Edgehill; is a seat of petty sessions and county courts, and a polling place; and has a post-office‡ under Rugby, two banking offices, a hotel, several inns, a church, Independent and Methodist chapels, endowed national schools with £61 a year, an eye and ear infirmary, a mineral spring similar to the waters of Leamington, another spring with intensely cold water, a workhouse, town lands £180, a weekly market on Monday, and a fair on the first Monday of every month. The church is partly decorated English; was repaired and partly rebuilt in 1854; and has a beautiful broach spire.—The parish comprises 2,770 acres. Real property, £9,175. Pop., 1,674. Houses, 253. The manor is divided into 32 shares. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Worcester. Value, £600.* Patron, the Crown.—The district contains 19 parishes, and 7 extra-parochial tracts. Acres, 50,409. Poor rates in 1863, £5,490. Pop. in 1851,10,504; in 1861, 10,392. Houses, 2,279. Marriages in 1863, 59; births, 314,-of which 22 were illegitimate; deaths, 190,-of which 66 were at ages under 5 years, and 5 at ages above 85. Marriages in the ten years 1851-60, 657; births, 3,457; deaths, 1,959. The places of worship, in 1851, were 19 of the Church of England, with 4,527 sittings; 3 of Independents, with 469 s.; 5 of Wesleyans, with 699 s.; 4 of Primitive Methodists, with 303 s.; 1 of Moravians, with 70 s.; and 1 undefined, with 70 s. The schools were 17 public day-schools, with 1,022 scholars; 22 private day-schools, with 425 s.; and 28 Sunday schools, with 1,783 s.-The division is mainly identical with the district, but less extensive; and is part of Knightlow hundred. Acres, 44,730. Pop. in 1851,9,362. Houses, 2,010.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a small town, a parish, a district, and a division"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Southam AP/CP       Southam RegD/PLU       Warwickshire AncC
Place names: SOUTHAM     |     SUCHAM
Place: Southam

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