Ringwood, Hampshire

Description
Ringwood, a town and a parish in Hampshire, with a station on the L. & S.W.R, 103 miles from London, and a post, money order, and telegraph office. The town stands on the river Avon, at the junction of the railway to Christchurch, on the verge of the New Forest, 21 miles by road and 24 1/4 by railway W by S of Southampton. It claims, without any good evidence, to have been the Roman Regnum; was known to the Saxons as Renoved and Regnewaed, from the vadum or vade across the river; appears to have acquired some consequence before the Norman Conquest; was long famous, in modern times, for good ale and for a particular kind of woollen gloves; has still a brewery, some hosiery manufacture, and a large factory for agricultural implements. It is a seat of petty sessions; consists chiefly of four streets diverging from a market-place, and has two banks, two chief inns, a large and handsome town-hall built in 1868, a lecture-hall, a theatre, a police station, three bridges, a public library with reading-rooms, a church, an endowed school, almshouses, a workhouse, and charities. The church was Early English, has been almost entirely rebuilt, and has several memorial windows. There are Wesleyan, Baptist, Unitarian, and Congregational chapels. A weekly general market is held on Wednesday, a cattle market on every alternate Wednesday, and fairs on 10 July and 11 Dec. The parish comprises the tithings of Ringwood Town, Ashley, Bisterne and Crowe Burley, Kingston, Avon, Wattensford, Moortown, Poulner, Hop Garden, and part of Blashford. Acreage, 10,144 of land and 221 of water; population of the civil parish, 4028; of the ecclesiastical, 4372. There is a parish council consisting of twelve members. Harbridge has also a parish council of five members. Avon Castle is now occupied as a hotel. Bisterne House is the chief residence. The living is a vicarage, united with the rectory of Harbridge and the chapelry of Bisterne, in the diocese of Winchester; net value, £300 with residence. Patron, King's College, Cambridge. The perpetual curacy of Barley is a separate benefice. Lord Chief-Justice Mansfield was a native.