Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for BROMSGROVE, or Broomsgrove

BROMSGROVE, or Broomsgrove, a town, a parish, a subdistrict, and a district, in Worcester. The town stands on the river Salwarp. under the Lickey hills, 1¼ mile W of the Midland railway, near the Worcester and Birmingham canal, 12 miles NE by N of Worcester. It was anciently called Bremesgrave; sent two members to parliament in the time of Edward I.; and held long the estates of a corporate town, with bailiff, recorder, aldermen, and other officers. It consists chiefly of one street, about a mile long; and contains many good modern houses, with some very ancient ones, curious and picturesque. It has a head post office,‡ a railway station with telegraph, two banking offices, four chief inns, a neat town hall of 1832, a parish church, a Baptist chapel of 1867, other dissenting chapels, a Roman Catholic chapel, a grammar school, a free school, a literary and mechanics' institute, charities £350 a year, and a workhouse; and it is seat of petty sessions and a polling place, and publishes a weekly newspaper. The church shows various characters, from Norman downwards; has a tower and spire 189 feet high; was restored in 1858, at a cost of £5,600; and contains several handsome monuments of the Earls of Shrewsbury and one of Councillor Lyttleton. The Roman Catholic chapel was built in 1863; is in the decorated English style of architecture; and forms a conspicuous object to travellers entering the town. The grammar school dates from the time of Edward VI.; has an endowed income of £64; and holds a fellowship and scholarship at Worcester college, Oxford. A weekly market is held on Tuesday; a monthly market, toll free, on the first Tuesday after 6 Jan., 24 June, the second Tuesday of Dec., and the last Tuesday of the other months; and fairs on 24 June and 1 Oct. A considerable linen and patent button manufacture was formerly carried on, but has ceased; and the chief manufacture now is nails. Real property, £16,024. Pop., 5,262. Houses, 1,148. The parish includes also the hamlet of Chadwick and the chapelry of Cats-Hill. Acres, 10,968. Real property, £29,850. Pop., 10,822. Houses, 2,304. The property is much subdivided. The Lickey hills, a little north of the town, are on the watershed between the Severn and the Trent; were not long ago reclaimed from wildness to cultivation; and command delightful views. A chalybeate spring is at Barnet green, and a petrifying spring at Holy-wood. A Premonstratensian priory was founded, in the time of Henry I., at Dodsworth; and part of it is included in a farmhouse. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Worcester. Value, £1,005.* Patrons, the Dean and Chapter of Worcester. The vicarages of Lickey and Cats-Hill are separate benefices.

The subdistrict contains the parishes of Bromsgrove and Stoke-Prior. Acres, 14,788. Pop., 12,444. Houses, 2,634.—The district comprehends also the subdistrict of Belbroughton, containing the parishes of Belbroughton, Clent, Hagley, Pedmore, and Frankley, and part of the parish of Halesowen; and the subdistrict of Tardebigg, containing the parishes of Tardebigg, Alvechurch, and Coston-Hackett. Acres, 47,374. Poor-rates in 1866, £11,744. Pop. in 1861, 26,207. Houses, 5,510. Marriages in 1866, 190; births, 1,021,-of which 87 were illegitimate; deaths, 558,-of which 239 were at ages under 5 years, and 16 at ages above 85. Marriages in the ten years 1851-60, 1,483; births, 8,609; deaths, 5,200. The places of worship in 1851 were 15 of the Church of England, with 6,747 sittings; 3 of Independents, with 900 s.; 4 of Baptists, with 310 s.; 9 of Wesleyan Methodists, with 1,731 s.; 9 of Primitive Methodists, with 1,144 s.; and 1 of the Wesleyan Association, with 300 s. The schools were 16 public day schools, with 1,584 scholars; 4 3 private day schools, with 925 s.; 28 Sunday schools, with 3,511 s.; and 3 evening schools for adults, with 39 s.


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

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a town, a parish, a subdistrict, and a district"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Bromsgrove CP/AP       Bromsgrove SubD       Bromsgrove RegD/PLU       Worcestershire AncC
Place names: BREMESGRAVE     |     BROMSGROVE     |     BROMSGROVE OR BROOMSGROVE     |     BROOMSGROVE
Place: Bromsgrove

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