Barton Regis Hundred

Not to be confused with King's Barton, a hundred adjacent to Gloucester city.

Gloucestershire Hundreds in 1832

Barton Regis was an ancient hundred of Gloucestershire, England. Hundreds originated in the late Saxon period as a subdivision of a county and lasted as administrative divisions until the 19th century.[1]

It comprised the three ancient parishes of Clifton, Mangotsfield and Stapleton, all on the outskirts of the city of Bristol, plus the Bristol parishes of St George, St Philip & St Jacob and St James Out.[2] The hundred took its name from the manor of Barton just outside Bristol, mentioned in the Domesday Book as Bertune apud Bristov,[3] and later in 1220 as Berton Bristoll.[4] In Saxon and early Norman times the manor was held by the king, and was known as Barton Regis.

At the time of the Domesday Book, Barton Regis was part of the neighbouring hundred of Swineshead.[5]

In 1836 the hundred became the basis of a new Poor Law Union, which also included additional parishes north and west of Bristol.[6] The Poor Law Union did not include Mangotsfield (part of Keynsham Union), or the central areas of Bristol (exempted from the 1836 poor law changes as an existing Incorporation).[7] The Poor Law Union was initially named Clifton Union, but was changed in 1877 to Barton Regis Union, because the residents of Clifton objected to the poor mortality statistics associated with the name of Clifton resulting from the inclusion of poorer areas in east Bristol.[8] In 1875, the parts of the Poor Law Union outside Bristol formed the basis of the Barton Regis rural sanitary district, which was replaced by Barton Regis Rural District in 1894. The rural district was abolished in 1904, when it was split between Bristol City Council, Chipping Sodbury RD and Thornbury RD.[9]

In 1877 Clifton registration district, used for the registration of births, marriages and deaths, was replaced by Barton Regis Registration District. The Barton Regis Registration District included most of the area of the Barton Regis Poor Law Union, and therefore included Bristol north of the Avon, outside the central area. The district was abolished in 1905, when most of it became part of Bristol Registration District.[10]

The name survives in the district of Barton Hill.

  1. ^ Webb, Sidney; Webb, Beatrice (1906). English Local Government from the Revolution to the Municipal Corporations Act: the parish and the county. London: Longmans Green and Company. pp. 284–285.
  2. ^ Abstract of the Answers and Returns Made Pursuant to an Act, Passed in the 43d Year of His Majesty King George III, Intituled "An Act for Procuring Returns Relative to the Expence and Maintenance of the Poor in England". 1803.
  3. ^ "Domesday Map, Barton Regis". Archived from the original on 28 March 2012. Retrieved 8 July 2011.
  4. ^ Ekwall, Eilert, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 4th edition, 1960. p. 29. ISBN 0198691033.
  5. ^ "Gloucestershire | Domesday Book". www.domesdaymap.co.uk. Archived from the original on 28 December 2017. Retrieved 28 December 2017.
  6. ^ "Barton Regis Gloucestershire". A Vision of Britain. University of Portsmouth. Retrieved 1 November 2016.
  7. ^ Family Search: Bristol Poor Law Unions, England
  8. ^ Latimer, John (1887). The Annals of Bristol in the Nineteenth Century. pp. 493–494.
  9. ^ "No. 27619". The London Gazette. 24 November 1903. pp. 7633–7635.
  10. ^ GENUKI: Barton Regis Registration District