Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for ROSS

ROSS, a town, a parish, a sub-district, and a district, in Herefordshire. The town stands on the river Wye and on the Hereford and Gloucester railway, at the junctionin the Ross and Monmouth railway, 12¼ miles S E by S of Hereford; belonged once to the Bishops of Hereford, who had a palace at it; was devastated by the plague in 1637; has a house in which Charles I. slept, on his way to Raglan; possesses celebrity in connexion with John Kyrle, "the Man of Ross, " the subject of a poem by Pope; sent members to parliament in the time of Edward I.; was madea borough by Henry III.; is now governed nominally by a serjeant or mayor, and four constables; occupies elevatedground, amid a richly cultivated and highly picturesquetract of country; has a promenade, called the Prospect, formed by John Kyrle, and commanding a delightfulview; comprises several irregularly constructed streets, and several good ones; has, of late years, undergonematerial improvement; is a seat of petty-sessions and a county court, and a polling-place; publishes two weeklynewspapers; and has a head post-office, ‡ a railway station with telegraph, three banking offices, three chief inns, abridge, a town hall, a market house, a police station, a church, five dissenting chapels, a mechanics' institute, anagricultural society, a choral society, a grammar-school with £10 a year from endowment, a blue-coat school with £211, alms-houses with £99, a dispensary, a work-house, and general charities £213. The market house was built in 1862, at a cost of £2, 500; and includes apartments used as reading-rooms, and as the mechanics'institute library. The church is decorated English; has a tower and elegant spire, 121 feet high; was recentlyrestored and enlarged; and contains monuments of the Rudhalls and the Westfalings, and an elaborate monument of, John Kyrle. The Wesleyan chapel was built in 1867 A weekly market is held on Thursday; a cattle-market, on every 4th Thursday; and fairs on the Thursday after 10 March, Holy Thursday, the second Thursday after Whit-Sunday, 20 July, the Thursday after 10 Oct., and 11 Dec. There are a large brewery, two large tan-yards, an iron foundry, agricultural-machine manufactories, and several corn mills. Pop. of the town in 1851, 2, 674; in 1861, 3, 715. Houses, 736.

The parish is divided into borough and foreign; but part of the latter division, as well as all the former, isoccupied by the town. Acres of the whole, 3, 118. Real property of the borough div., £7, 741; of which £100 are in gas-works. Pop. in 1851, 2, 674; in 1861, 2, 718. Houses, 521. Real property of the foreign div., £10, 887; of which £121 are in quarries. Pop. in 1851, 1, 343; in 1861, 1, 628. Houses, 344. The living is a rectory and a vicarage in the diocese of Hereford. Value, £1, 100.* Patron, the Bishop of Hereford.—The sub-district contains also the parishes of Weston-under-Penyard, Lea, Hope-Mansell, Walford, Goodrich, Marstow, and Ruar-dean, and the tything of Lea-Bailey, the two last electorally in Gloucester. Acres, 17, 250. Pop., 9,032. Houses, 1,883. The district comprehends also the sub-district of St. Weonards, containing the parishes of St. Weonards, Hentland, Pencoyd, Llanwarne, Llandinabo, Harewood, Ballingham, Llangarren, and Tretire-with-Michaelchurch; and the sub-district of Sollershope, containing the parishes of Sollershope, Brockhampton, Kings-Caple, Sellack, Foy, How-Caple, Upton-Bishop, Brampton-Abbotts, Peterstow, and Bridstow, and the township of Yatton. Acres of the district, 55, 568. Poor-rates in 1863, £8, 661. Pop. in 1851, 15, 502; in 1861, 16, 306. Houses, 3, 357. Marriages in 1863, 111; births, 531, of which 49 were illegitimate; deaths, 325, of which 92 were at ages under 5 years, and 15 above 85. Marriages in the ten years 1851-60, 1,042; births, 4, 819; deaths, 3, 213. The places of worship, in 1851, were 27of the Church of England, with 6, 426 sittings; 3 of Independents, with 520 s.; 4 of Baptists, with 810 s.; 1 of Quakers, with 250 s.; 9 of Wesleyans, with 920 s.; 3 of Primitive Methodists, with 165 s.; 1 of Bible Christians, with 105 s.; 1 of Brethren, with 250 s.; and 1 of Latter Day Saints, with 30 s. The schools were 12 public day-schools, with 636 scholars; 22 private day-schools, with509 s.; and 20 Sunday schools, with 1, 306 s. The work-house has accommodation for 160 inmates.


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

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a town, a parish, a sub-district, and a district"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Ross CP/AP       Ross SubD       Ross RegD/PLU       Herefordshire AncC
Place: Ross

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