Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for NEWCHURCH

NEWCHURCH, a village and a parish in the Isle of Wight. The village stands adjacent to the river Brading, 4¾ miles S E by E of Newport . is approached, onone side, by a road cut through an almost precipitousridge; consists chiefly of one clean and pretty street of cottages, with flower-plots before the doors; and has a post-office under Newport, Isle of Wight. The parish, prior to 1864, extended from sea to sea; measured 13 miles in length, with comparatively narrow breadth; comprised 8, 730 acres of land, and 470 of water; and was cut into two divisions, N and S. The N div. included part of the town of Ryde, part of Haven-Street, and the places called Homelands, Haylands, and Holm-wood. Real property, in 1860, £57, 100; of which £700were in gas-works. Pop. in 1851, 8, 484; in 1861, 10, 386. Houses, 1, 960. The S div. included the town of Ventnor, and the places called Wroxall, Whiteley-Bank, and Princelet. Real property, in 1860, £21,084; of which £54 were in quarries, and £200 in gas-works. Pop. in 1851, 3,055; in 1861, 3, 622. Houses, 604. The pop.of the entire parish was computed at 1, 505 in 1780; and was 2,039 in 1801, and 8, 370 in 1841. But, under a private act of parliament in 1864, the parish was divided, forall purposes, civil and ecclesiastical, into the three parishes of Newchurch, Ryde, and Ventnor; and the curtailed parish of Newchurch includes only the rural tracts, extends from Ashey down to Wroxall, and had a pop. ofabout 1,000 in 1867. The surface is very diversified, and shares largely in the beauties and other attractions of theisland. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Winchester. Value, £420.* Patron, the Bishop of Gloucester. The church stands on the brink of a steep woodedbank; was given by William Fitz-Osborne, soon-after the Conquest, to his abbey of Lire; retains few marks of antiquity, and none of the Norman age, yet shows someearly English lancets, and has interiorly some rude decorated arcades; is plain and cruciform, with a wooden S Wtower; and contains, in the N transept, memorials of the Dillingtons. There are an endowed school with £9 a year, and charities £7. See Ryde and Ventnor.


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

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a village and a parish"   (ADL Feature Type: "populated places")
Administrative units: Newchurch CP/AP       Hampshire AncC
Place: Newchurch

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