Bitton, Somerset

Description
Bitton, a village, a township, and a parish in Gloucestershire. The village stands near the confluence of the Boyd and the Avon, adjacent to the Julian Way, 6 miles SE of Bristol. Area of the township, 3665 acres; population of the civil parish, 3023; of the ecclesiastical, 1212. It has a station on the M.R., and a post and money order office under Bristol; telegraph office at the railway station. The parish includes also Hanham chapelry and Oldland hamlet, with Kingswood village and the villages of Beach, Willsbridge, Upton Cheyney, Swineford, and Longwell's Green. Coal and iron ore are worked. Traces of many Roman antiquities have been found. The manor of Bitton was granted in 1137 to Robert Fitzhardinge, and passed to his son, Robert de Berkeley, whose arms have been traced on tiles found in the churchyard; it passed to a family who assumed the name of De Bitton, and thence by marriage to the Barre family, whose name is preserved in Barre's Court, the manor house, now a farmhouse; subsequently the manor came into the hands of the Newton family, to whom there are monuments in the church. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol; gross value, £294 with residence. Patron, the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. The church is a handsome building, partly Norman, partly Perpendicular 1/2 and has a fine Perpendicular tower, with a staircase turret; in the chancel are three sedilia. An effigy of Robert de Bitton, who died in 1227, was discovered in the churchyard, and has been placed in the church. The vicarages of Hanham, Oldland, and Kingswood are separate benefices. There Are Wesleyan and Free Methodist chapels.