The district church of St. John, at PURTON, is a building of stone in the Early English style, erected in 1874 at a cost of £1,000, and consists of nave with apse, south porch and an open western turret containing one bell: there are 120 sittings.

The iron church of St. Michael, at BREADSTONE, was opened December 19th, 1878, and has 100 sittings.

The school-chapel at WICK, erected by the landed proprietors of the parish in 1875, is a building of stone, seating 100 persons.

The Mission chapel of St. Maurice, in the hamlet of NEWPORT, 1½ miles south-east, and near the road from Bristol to Gloucester, erected at a cost of about £200, and opened on Wednesday, August 8, 1883, is a plain structure of wood, consisting of chancel, nave, south porch, and a bell-turret in the centre of the nave containing 1 bell: the communion table is of carved oak, and between the chancel and nave is a rood screen surmounted by a cross: the chapel will seat about 120 persons.

A new mission room, at BROOKEND, used chiefly for Sunday school purposes and week-night services, was dedicated by the Bishop of the diocese in October, 1896, and will seat about 100 persons. The Congregational chapel, built in 1835, was restored in 1896 at a cost of over £300, and affords 250 sittings. There is a Wesleyan Methodist chapel, built in 1805, and renovated in 1901, and seating 208 persons; and another at Halmore, erected in 1829; there is a Baptist chapel at Newport, built in 1710 and rebuilt in 1825.

The cemetery, at the north end of the town, opened in 1866, at a cost of £1,600, is 3 acres in extent, and has a lych gate, used as a mortuary chapel, and a house for the sexton; it is under the control of a joint committee of fourteen, the constituent parish councils returning members in the following proportions, viz.: - Alkington 2, Berkeley 2, Hamfallow 3, Ham and Stone 2, and Hinton 4, and the Breadstone parish meeting 1.
[Kelly's Directory of Gloucestershire, 1923]

Transcriber's Note The above is an extract from Purton's mother parish of Berkeley, but I have included descriptions relating to other villages and hamlets in Berkeley, and its cemetery as well.

Evidently, Purton would have been of greater importance in the past, as a ferry service operated between it, and its 'twin' in Lydney parish, on the other side of the Severn. This came to an end when a railway bridge downstream of the ferry opened in 1879.