Fairford, Gloucestershire : Historical writing

Descriptive gazetteer entries

These other entries in our collection of descriptive gazetteers are also about Fairford. You may be able to find further references to Fairford in the descriptive gazetteers by doing a full-text search here.

Place Type of entry Source
Fairford parish and village with railway station Bartholomew
FAIRFORD a small town, a parish, and a sub-district Imperial

Travel writing

This website includes the complete texts of books describing journeys around Britain, written between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries. Selecting one of the links below will take you to the first reference to Fairford within the selected text. This will not always be a description of a visit: travellers often mention places other than where they are, for example as a basis for comparison.

Traveller Section No. of Refs.
William Cobbett Sept. 29th to Oct. 2nd, 1826: Ryall to Burghclere 5
William Camden Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire 1
Daniel Defoe Letter 4, Part 2: Somerset and Wiltshire 1
Edwin Russell Sept. 13 to 17: Moreton in Marsh, Northleach and Fairford 1
Edwin Russell Sept. 18 to 26: Little Barrington and Witherington 1

This website includes two large libraries, of historical travel writing and of entries from nineteenth century gazetteers describing places. We have text from these sources available for these places near your location:

Place Mentioned in Travel Writing Mentioned in Historical Gazetteer
Brightwells Barrow 0 2
Quenington 0 2
Hatherop 0 2
Kempsford 2 2
Meysey Hampton 0 4
Southrop 0 2
Marston Meysey 0 2
Poulton 0 2
Coln St Aldwyns 0 2
Lechlade 3 2
Eastleach Turville 0 3
Eastleach Martin 0 3
Down Ampney 1 2
Ampney St Mary 0 1
Ampney St Peter 0 1
Castle Eaton 0 2
Inglesham 0 2
Bibury 0 2
Little Faringdon 0 2
Broughton Poggs 0 2

Names from historical writing

The following appear as names for Fairford. Follow the links for what the author actually said:

Name Author Source
FAIREFORD William Camden Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610).
FAIRFORD John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
John Marius Wilson Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (Edinburgh: A Fullarton & Co., 1870-72).

NB: These variant names come from our collections of historical travel writing and descriptive gazetteers:

  • The above links take you to the first reference to this particular version of the name within a book of travel writing, or to the relevant gazetteer entry.
  • Some names may derive from research by antiquarian writers such as William Camden and Thomas Pennant into the Roman, Saxon and medieval names of places. Their claims are not always supported by modern place-name researchers.
  • References by travel writers to the place using its "normal" name are not included. Descriptive gazetteer entries are included only if the name does not appear anywhere else.