KINGSWOOD, a parish in the hundred of CHIPPENHAM,
county of WILTS, though locally in the hundred
of Grumbald's Ash, county of Gloucester, 5 miles
(S. byW.) from Dursley, containing 1391 inhabitants.
The living is a perpetual curacy, in the archdeaconry
and diocese of Gloucester, endowed with £200 private
benefaction, £200 royal bounty, and £1000 parliamentary
grant, and in the patronage of the Inhabitants.
The church is dedicated to St. Mary. There are places
of worship for Independents and Wesleyan Methodists.
The parish is watered by the Middle Avon, on the banks
of which river are several extensive cloth manufactories.
A free school for teaching children to read and write
was endowed with £50 per annum, in 1674, by John
Mayo, Esq. An abbey of Cistercian monks .from Tintern
was founded here, in 1139, by William de Berkeley,
in honour of the Blessed Virgin, but the society afterwards
removed to Tetbury. In 1170 they once more
removed/and settled at Mireford in Kingswood, near
the old site, and at the dissolution possessed a revenue
of £254. 11. 2. The only remains of the monastic
buildings are the foundations of the two churches and
a gate-house of the gable form, with a range of ruins on
each side.