Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for STEVENAGE

STEVENAGE, a small town and a parish in Hitchin district, Herts. The town stands on the Great Northern railway, 4 miles SE by S of Hitchin; was known, at Domesday, as Stevenach; is a seat of petty sessions, and a polling place; consists chiefly of one street, about ¾ of a mile long; and has a head post-office,‡ a r. station, a police station, a public reading room and library, an ancient parish church, another church built in 1862, Baptist and Wesleyan chapels, an endowed grammar-school with £40 a year, a national school, three houses of the guild of literature and art built in 1865, alms houses with £31 a year, other charities £47, a straw-plait market on every Saturday, and a fair on 22 Sept. The parish comprises 4,434 acres. Real property, £10,522; of which £20 are in gasworks. Pop. in 1851, 2,118; in 1861, 2,352. Houses, 512. The manor was given, by the Confessor, to Westminster abbey; and, by Edward VI., to the Bishops of London. Six barrows, supposed to be Danish, are ½ a mile S of the town. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Rochester. Value, £1,007.* Patron, W. R. Baker, Esq.


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

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a small town and a parish"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Stevenage AP/CP       Hitchin RegD/PLU       Hertfordshire AncC
Place names: STEVENACH     |     STEVENAGE
Place: Stevenage

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