BROOKTHORPE, or BROOKTHROP, is a parish and village, on the high road from Stroud to Gloucester, 2½ miles north-east from Haresfield station on the Bristol and Birmingham section of the Midland railway and 4 south from Gloucester, in the Stroud division of the county, middle division of the hundred of Dudstone and King's Barton, union of Wheatenhurst, county court district, petty sessional division, rural deanery, archdeaconry and diocese of Gloucester. The church of St. Swithen is a small but ancient building of stone in the First Pointed or Early English style of the 13th century, consisting of chancel, nave, north aisle, south porch and a western saddle-backed tower, containing a clock and 2 bells: in the cornice of the south porch, rudely cut, is this curious chronogram:

"Ter Deno Ian I Labens reX so Le CaDente = 1212
Caro LVs eXVtVs soLlo sCceptroq V seCVre. = 436

Year of the Martyrdom of Charles I. 1648"

A memorial window was placed, about 1897, to the Rev. Stuart Majendie B.A. vicar 1883-95; and there is another to the Rev. Dr. Bailey, a former vicar: the church was completely restored in 1892 at a cost of £1,200, and affords 110 sittings. The register of Brookthorpe dates from 1730, and that of Whaddon from 1674. The living is a vicarage, with that of Whaddon annexed in 1843, joint net yearly value £234, including 9 acres of glebe, with residence, built in 1846, in the gift of the Dean and Chapter of Gloucester (who have three turns) and of Lt.-Col. Sir A.D. Neeld bart. C.B., M.V.O. (who has one turn), and held since 1916 by the Rev. Thomas Edgar Johnson M.A. of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

There is a charity called "Bedwell's", worth about £3 yearly, for the parishes of Brookthorpe and Whaddon. Miss Maitland, who is lady of the manor, and Mrs. Brent-Smith are the chief landowners. The soil is clayey; geological formation, blue lias, with occasional beds of gravel - detritus from the inferior oolite. The chief crops are wheat, barley and pasture. The area is 1,094 acres; rateable value, £1,941; the population in 1911 was 220 in the civil parish and 602 in the ecclesiastical parish (which includes Whaddon and parts of Harescombe and Quedgley).

Portions of the parish were transferred to Pitchcombe, and other parishes, and portions of Haresfield and Whaddon and Brookchapel, by Local Government Board Orders 15,264, 16,495 and 16,525, in the years 1884, 1885 and 1888.
[Kelly's Directory of Gloucestershire, 1923]