Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for STAINES

STAINES, a small town, a parish, a sub-district, and a district, in Middlesex. The town stands on the river Thames, near the influx of the river Colne, and on the Southwestern railway, at the junction of the line to Windsor, 6 miles SE of Windsor; took its name from an ancient stone on the boundary of the City of London's jurisdiction of the Thames; was known to the Romans as Pontes, to the Saxons as Stane; stood anciently amid a forest which, till 1227, extended to Hounslow; was the place where the Danes crossed the Thames, in 1009, after burning Oxford; is a seat of petty sessions, and governed by two constables and four head-boroughs; publishes a weekly newspaper; carries on brewing and mustard-manufacture; and has a head post-office,‡ a r. station with telegraph, a banking office, a chief inn, a disused market house, a police station, a bridge erected in 1832 at a cost of more than £40,000, a neat modern church, four dissenting chapels, a literary and scientific institution erected in 1835, a national school, a Lancasterian school, a school of industry, charities £20, a weekly market on Friday, and fairs on 11 May and 19 Sept. Pop. in 1861, 2,584. Houses, 526.—The parish comprises 1,844 acres. Real property, £14,176. Pop. in 1851, 2,577; in 1861, 2,749. Houses, 557. The manor belongs to R. Taylor, Esq. Yoveney also is a manor; and Hammonds, Duncroft House, Shortwood Common, and Withygate are chief places. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of London. Value, £300.* Patron, the Lord Chancellor. Inigo Jones was a resident. -The sub-district contains six parishes. Acres, 13,278. Pop., 8,687. Houses, 1,736.—The district comprehends also Sunbury sub-district, and comprises 24,881 acres. Poor rates in 1863, £9,386. Pop. in 1851, 13,973; in 1861, 15,976. Houses, 3,165. Marriages in 1863, 87; births, 479,-of which 21 were illegitimate; deaths, 353,-of which 129 were at ages under 5 years, and 10 at ages above 85. Marriages in the ten years 1851-60, 804; births, 4,326; deaths, 2,870. The places of worship, in 1851, were 13 of the Church of England, with 4,433 sittings; 5 of Independents, with 1,030 s.; 5 of Baptists, with 833 s.; 1 of Quakers, with 250 s.; 2 of Wesleyans, with 238 s.; and 1 of Primitive Methodists, with 50 s. The schools were 15 public day schools, with 1,296 scholars; 27 private day schools, with 507 s.; and 16 Sunday schools, with 1,245 s. The workhouse is in Stanwell.


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

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a small town, a parish, a sub-district, and a district"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Staines AP/CP       Staines SubD       Staines RegD/PLU       Middlesex AncC
Place names: PONTES     |     STAINES     |     STANE
Place: Staines

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