FRENCHAY (originally Froomshaw, the wooded bank of the Frome), is a tithing and with the hamlet of Hambrook was formed August 12, 1836, into an ecclesiastical parish from the parish of Winterbourne, Gloucestershire; it is 1½ miles north from Fishponds station on the Bristol and Birmingham section of the Midland railway, and 4 north-by-east from Bristol, in the Thornbury division of the county, Chipping Sodbury union, Lawford's Gate petty sessional division, Bristol county court district, rural deanery of Stapleton and archdeaconry and diocese of Bristol.

The church of St. John the Baptist, consecrated in 1834, is a modern building of stone, in the Gothic style, consisting of nave of five bays, aisles, north porch and a western tower with spire containing a clock and one bell: it will seat 500 persons. The register dates from the year 1834. The living is a rectory, net yearly value £330, with residence, in the gift of St. John's College, Oxford, and held since 191 by the Rev. Cyril Travers Barges M.A. of that college. There is a Unitarian chapel, founded in 1691 and rebuilt in 1720, a United Methodist chapel and a meeting house for the Society of Friends. The area is 1,172 acres; the population in 1911 was 1,019.

HAMBROOK, a hamlet forming part of the ecclesiastical parish, is situated half a mile north. There is a Congregational chapel, with a school, and a mission chapel belonging to the Church of England. The Cottage Hospital here, established in 1867, was rebuilt in 1905 as a memorial to the late Dr. Crossman.
[Kelly's Directory of Gloucestershire, 1923]