THE Parliamentary Gazetteer OF ENGLAND AND WALES, Adapted to the most recent Statistical Arrangements, and Lines of Railroad and Canal Communication, WITH A COMPLETE COUNTY-ATLAS OF ENGLAND, FOUR LARGE MAPS OF WALES, AND AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING THE RESULTS, IN DETAIL, OF THE CENSUS OF 1841. VOLUME I. A. FULLARTON & CO.: STEAD'S PLACE, LEITH WALK, EDINBURGH; 1851. PREFACE. N offering the present Volumes to the notice and patronage of the Public, it cannot be necessary to expatiate at any length on the value and practical utility of Works of this class if accurately and comprehensively compiled. A TOPOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF GAZETTEER of one's own country is a valuable acquisition, not only to persons in business, but to every one who feels an interest in what is going on around him, or wishes to avail himself, in any form, of that ceaseless and rapid intercommunication now happily established betwixt every town, village, and hamlet, included within the four seas of Britain.' At the same time, it will be expected that the Publishers of the present GAZETTEER should assign some reasons which may induce a favourable opinion of their own undertaking in particular. These reasons may be briefly stated as follows:Although several extensive, and in many respects, well-executed Gazetteers and Topographical Dictionaries of the United Kingdom, and of England and Wales in particular, have appeared within these few years, it is a fact that all the existing Works of this class have become in great part obsolete, and more or less unfit for the exact purposes of a Gazetteer by reason of the extensive and important changes which have taken place since 1830 in the Franchise, and since 1835 in the Municipal representation, and in the Ecclesiastical arrangements, of this portion of the United Kingdom. When to this consideration it is added that the present is the first GAZETTEER in which special attention has been paid to the operation of the new Poor-Law, and the formation of the Poor-Law unions, and in which the Great Railroad lines of communication now intersecting the kingdom are noticed in detail, the utility of a Gazetteer which shall specially embrace these topics will be at once felt and admitted by the Merchant, the Manufacturer, the Tourist, the Landed proprietor, and Professional gentlemen of all classes. To supply this desideratum has been the object of the PARLIAMENTARY GAZETTEER, which-as is meant to be implied by its title-rests its claim to public patronage mainly on the ground that all its Municipal, Ecclesiastical, and Statistical details |