BADGEWORTH, a parish in the upper division of
the hundred of DUDSTONE-and-KING'S-BARTON, county
of GLOUCESTER, 4 miles (S.W. by W.) from Cheltenham,
containing 715 inhabitants. The living is a vicarage,
with the perpetual curacy of Great Shurdington annexed,
in the archdeaconry and diocese of Gloucester,
rated in the king's books at £20. 11. 3., and in the patronage
of W. Laurence Laurence, Esq.: there is also
a sinecure rectory, in the patronage of the Principal arid
Fellows of Jesus' College, Oxford. The church, dedicated
to St. Mary, is a handsome stone building, with a
tower at the west end. There was formerly a chapel of
ease at Bentham, in this parish. The village, which
tradition reports to have anciently been a market-town,
was evidently much larger than it now is, from the
foundations of houses which have been discovered in its
vicinity. At Churchdown is a school for the instruction
of children of that parish and Badgeworth, to
which £25 per annum are paid out of an estate here,
left for that purpose by William Window, Gent. The
Rev. William Stanby, formerly vicar of this parish, demised
an estate for apprenticing boys of the parishes
of Badgeworth, Churchdown, and Cheltenham; and
there are various minor charities for the benefit of the
poor. On an estate called Cold Pool is a mineral
spring, the water of which is similar to the Cheltenham
waters.