KINGSWOOD, a parish in the upper division of the
hundred of LANGLEY-AND-SWINEHEAD, county of GLOUCESTER,
4 miles (E.byN.) from Bristol. The population
is returned with the parish of Bitton, in which the village
of Kingswood Hill is partly situated. The living is
a perpetual curacy, in the archdeaconry of Dorset, and
diocese of Bristol, endowed with £2400 parliamentary
grant, and in the patronage of Trustees. The chapel
is dedicated to the Holy Trinity. Here is a free school,
founded in 1748, by the Rev. John Wesley, for clothing
and educating in the classics one hundred boys, the
sons of Wesleyan ministers, under the direction of a
governor and six assistants, and supported chiefly by
the voluntary contributions of the Methodist societies.
Here are some extensive collieries, from which the city of
Bristol and its vicinity are principally supplied with coal.