Painswick
|
|
|
|
Painswick Parish Falkland House, on the west side of the street opposite
the chapel, was formerly the New Inn 16 and incorporates a 17th century cottages and an 18th century assembly
room. The inn had closed by 1879 17 and the house was used as a convalescent and training home for a few
years in the late 19th century 18
before being converted for
use as a residence, which it remained in 1972. Development in the early 20th century included an
estate east of the road where the Gyde almshouses and orphanage 20 were also built. Scattered cottages were built north of the town near
the Cheltenham road in the earlier 19th century. In the same area east of the
road, a cottage used until c.1890 for housing children waiting emigration to
Canada; the cottage then became a convalescent home for the Alexandra Children's
Hospital for Hip Disease, which it remained until the First World War. 25
A lying-in charity was established in 1833 58 and some convalescent homes, a few of which are mentioned
above, were attracted to the town in the late 19th century. Notes :- The lord of the manor of Painswick claimed view of
frankpledge, assize of bread and ale, right of gallows, pillory, and tumbril,
and suit of four tithingmen c. 1276. 3 The four tithings presumably
corresponded to the later units, which were Edge, which lay in the north-west
part of the parish and included most of the town; Spoonbed, which lay north of
the town and included part of the High Street; Sheepscombe, north-east of the
town; and Stroudend, which comprised the southern peninsula of the parish. 4 The claims of c. 1276 were again advanced in 1287 with
quittance of the shire and hundred courts under a charter of Henry II. 5 Burgages were established at Painswick by 1324 6 but no evidence of a separate borough court exists and from
the mid 15th century the burgages were dealt with in the manor court. 7 In one exceptional case,
when alterations were made to the manor customs c. 1442, the town appears to
have had special representation within that court. The court was held on several
occasions during the year until the mid 15th century; afterwards the general
court and view met twice a year 8 although special courts were
held for property transfers. 9 The court continued to deal
with agrarian matters, appointing surveyors of the fields in the 17th century
and until the mid 18th, 10 from which time it usually
met solely to deal with copyholds until the early 20th century. 11 There was a brief temporary revival of the court in 1957 in an
attempt to regulate the commons of the parish. 12 View of frankpledge was exercised in the 16th and 17th
centuries when the lord of the manor also claimed strays and felons' goods, and
the court sought to regulate the moral life of the town by appointing wardens of
common games and presenting moral misdemeanours. 13 In the mid 16th century a gallows was erected at Sheepscombe by Sir
Anthony Kingston who left a piece of land called Hangman's Acre to the
tithingman for its maintenance. The gallows survived into the 18th century. 14 The court retained some independence from the shire and
hundred into the 17th century when the sheriff or bailiff still required a
suppoena to serve a writ within the liberty of the manor. 15
The parish was policed by two constables, one for Edge
and Spoonbed, and the other for Sheepscombe and Stroudend. 16 The constables were assisted on fair days by four watchmen. A
whipping-post was recorded in 1687 17
but the parish lacked a
ducking-stool, 18 subsequently
provided in 1691. 19 The lack of a ducking-stool
was again presented in 1729. 20 The town lock-up and stocks
were at the town hall until its demolition in 1840, 21
after which iron stocks were
made and placed by the south-east wall of the churchyard where they remained in
1972. The parish had two churchwardens from the 15th century 22 and they represented the same tithings as the constables. In
1730 the wardens employed a dog-keeper for the town. 23
Each tithing had an overseer of the poor from the mid
18th century. A former church house, in New Street, was used for the poor in
1681. 24
The
cost of poor-relief in 1700 was £174 but a smallpox epidemic caused the high
figure of £415 to be spent in 1714. 25 By 1732 the expenditure had declined to £258 but a further
epidemic in 1741 encouraged the vestry to centralize the administration of
relief in the hands of a salaried
official and to rate the town separately from the rest of the parish so that the
cost of removing victims to the pest-house at Edge, was borne more equitably. 26 In 1748 the vestry were
committing persons to the workhouse, 27 recorded from 1729 28 and the cost of poor-relief remained fairly steady until 1757
when £572 was spent. In 1758 the experiment of paying a salary to an official
was reintroduced and continued in 1782 when the total cost of relief was £704. 29 In the later 18th century the vestry tried to impose more
stringent supervision of relief 30 but expenditure rose to £991
in 1803, when there were 14 inmates of the workhouse, and to £1,049 in 1813,
when the workhouse had 13 inmates. 31 In 1811 a salaried surgeon
and apothecary was appointed by the vestry. The administration of relief was
again in the hands of the overseers until 1817 when the vestry voted an annual
salary to a guardian of the poor and appointed a governor of the poorhouse. The
beginnings of a select vestry are apparent in the decision at that time to limit
supervision of poor-relief to ratepayers assessed at over £5 yearly, 32 and a select vestry of 16 members met from 1823 until at least
1832. 33
The
cost of relief continued to rise steadily to a peak of £2,193 in 1831 but it
declined to £1,467 in 1834. 34 The weaving trade accounted for over 80 per cent of the 242
people known to have been apprenticed by the parish between 1670 and 1835,
mostly in the earlier part of the period. 35 A later expedient of the
vestry for reducing the cost of the poor was the sponsoring of emigration to New
South Wales 36
which
met with some response in 1838 when 6 persons emigrated. 37 Painswick became part of the Stroud poor-law union in
1836. 38
A committee of health was formed for the parish in 1831 39 and an unofficial board of health was established in 1847. The
board of health had a fitful career until it was disbanded c. 1860, 40 so that the parish did not subsequently achieve urban district
status and, except for the Uplands area, became part of the Stroud rural
district. A bailiff and crier was recorded in the 18th century
and the spirit of antiquariansim common in the town in the late 19th century
resulted in a temporary revival of the office. 41
Notes
:- Source: Quoted from the Victoria County History,
Gloucestershire, volume 11, page 079, by permission of the General Editor.
Submitted by Alan Longbottom Almshouses Frederick Gyde (d. 1872) left approximately £10,000
for the benefit of the town of Painswick 92 and
the trustees subsequently played a major role in the provision of public
services. 93
Edwin Francis Gyde (d.
1894), his brother, also left considerable sums to the town for founding
alms-houses , which
were designed by Sidney Barnsley and opened in 1913, and an orphanage, completed
in 1918 to designs by P.R. Morley Horder, for Protestant orphans of the locality
and blind or deaf and dumb children. 94 Notes :- Source: Quoted from the Victoria County History,
Gloucestershire, volume 11, page 087, by permission of the General Editor.
Submitted by Alan Longbottom
|