Ludgershall in 1843
Ludgershall is in the hundred of Amesbury, 74 miles from the General Post-Office, London, by the South-Western Railway to Basingstoke, and from thence by Andover. The town is called Litlegarsele in Domesday. It had a castle erected soon after the Norman Conquest, of which there are some remains. It sent members, though not uninterruptedly, from the time of Edward I to the passing of the Reform Act, when it was disfranchised. The borough is not noticed in the Municipal Corporations Reform Act. The statistics of the borough and parish, in 1831, were as follows :-
Area: 1,660 acres.
Houses :
Inhabited : 116
Uninhabited : 4
Building: 0
TOTAL houses 120
Families Chiefly Employed In:-
Agriculture: 59
Trade &c.: 33
Others: 26
TOTAL families: 118
TOTAL persons: 535
The town is in a pleasant situation : the streets are neither paved nor lighted. The church is of irregular form, with nave, chancel, and two transepts of very unequal dimensions. The nave and chancel are separated by a pointed arch, the archway being occupied by a wooden screen ; and there is a low square western tower of irregular shape, built of flint and brick. The market has long been given up, but a mutilated stone cross distinguishes what was formerly the market-place. There is a considerable yearly fair. The living is a rectory of the clear yearly value of £274, in the rural deanery of Amesbury, in the archdeaconry and diocese of Salisbury. There were in the parish, in 1833, three day-schools, supported by subscription, with 46 scholars, viz. 26 boys and 20 girls, giving from one in eleven to one in twelve of the population under daily instruction. There were no Sunday-schools. |