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MARKET TOWNS OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE (from SDUK Penny Cyclopedia)

Dursley in 1838

Dursley, 14 miles south-south-west of Gloucester, is a small irregularly built town, consisting of two streets intersecting each other, and is situated at the base of a steep hill, covered with a fine hanging wood of beech. Some of the houses are of considerable antiquity ; on the exterior of one of them is the date of 1520. The church is a large handsome building ; near the centre of the town is a neat market-house of freestone, erected in 1738. The clothing business seems to have been carried on here for a very long time, for Leland calls Dursley 'a praty clothings towne.’ There are now six clothing-mills in the vicinity. The population of the parish in 1831 was 3,226. In the neighbourhood there occurs a stratum of tophus, or puff-stone, which when first cut is so soft as to be worked with the greatest facility, but after exposure to the air it becomes extremely hard and durable. The walls of Berkeley Castle are composed of this stone, and, though built more than 700 years back, are still in a good state of preservation.