Stockbridge in 1838
Stockbridge is a borough in the hundred of King’s Sombourn, on the left bank of the Anton or Test, and near the Andover canal ; it is 66 miles from London on a road leading from Basingstoke to Salisbury. The parish and borough limits coincide and comprehend 1,220 acres ; the population in 1831 was 851, about one-third agricultural. The town consists of one street, in which are seven bridges ; it has little trade, but is chiefly supported by being a considerable thoroughfare. There are races in the neighbourhood. The market is on Thursday, and there is a yearly fair (there were formerly three fairs), one of the largest in the county for lambs. Stockbridge returned two members to parliament up to the passing of the Reform Act, by which it was disfranchised : it is a borough by prescription ; the town-hall is a neat building. The living is a chapelry in the diocese and archdeaconry of Winchester, annexed to the vicarage of King’s Sombourn, to which the chapelry of Little Sombourn is also annexed ; their joint yearly value is £696 with a glebe-house. There were in Stockbridge in 1833 five day-schools with 99 children, and two Sunday-schools with 60 children.
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