Church History
An ancient area of Gloucester, Hempsted was just outside the City. The fine Norman church of St. Swithun was built and paid for by Norman noblemen. During the middle ages a persecuted Augustinian monastic order came out of Wales and settled at Hempsted with the blessing of the City authorities. They founded Llanthony Secunda Priory and Hempsted became an estate of the priory.
Extract from Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England, 1831.
HEMPSTEAD, a parish in the middle division of the hundred of DUDSTONE-AND-KINGS-BARTON, county of GLOUCESTER, 1 mile (S.W. by W.) from Gloucester, containing, with South Hamlet, 548 inhabitants. The living is a rectory, in the archdeaconry and diocese of Gloucester, rated in the king's books at £8. Mr. Alderman Jones was patron in 1826. The church is dedicated to St. Swithin. In a field here are vestiges of some earthworks thrown up by the royalists during the civil war. The Gloucester and Berkeley canal passes through this parish, and the navigable river Severn runs along its western boundary.
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