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Extent of the Parish of Trowbridge. 209 
progress of the wool trade, of which for so mapy years Trowbridge 
has been an important centre. Let us hope that some townsman, 
with special qualifications for the task, may be induced to take up 
the story where we leave it, and so to complete the narrative. 
The parish of TrowsBripGs forms part of the hundred of Melksham. 
On the south side it adjoins the hundred of Wherwelsdown, and on 
the west that of Bradford-on-Avon. It consists of a strip of land 
some three miles long, and on an average ove mile broad, and con- 
tains in all 2443 acres. It is divided into several tithings :—on the 
north is that of Staverton containing 679 acres—on the west is 
that of little Trowxz, with 232 acres—on the south that of StupLey, 
with 1027 acres—and there is also the Town Liberty consisting of 
some 505 acres. The town itself is situated, as nearly as may be, 
in the centre of the whole parish. The entire population amounted 
at the last census, in 1871, to about 11,000. As you look at the 
map, the first thing which strikes you is the comparatively small 
acreage for so large a population. The neighbouring parish, that 
of Bradford-on-Avon, has nearly jive times the extent of acreage, 
and yet had in 1871 but little more than 8000 inhabitants—some 
20 per cent. less than Trowbridge. No doubt it is owing to the 
extent and prosperity of its manufactures, and especially to the 
factory system, the tendency of which is to congregate large masses 
in towns, that this increase of population has taken place. The 
population has in fact doubled itself during the last century, and 
it is now the largest town in Wiltshire. 
For those who have all their lives been accustomed to regard the 
town as a large hive of active industry, and to whom no sound is 
more familiar than the busy hum of numerous artizans swarming 
periodically to and from their respective scenes of labour, it is by no 
means easy to realize the time when the whole parish was compara- 
tively speaking a solitude, its inhabitants being numbered by ¢ens, 
rather than as now by thousands. And yet, even within what we 
may almost call modern times—that is to say some two centuries 
ago—much that is now covered with buildings, or in a state of culti- 
yation, was either wood, or waste and common land. 
The names of places still remaining are suggestive of a very 
