KINGSWOOD, a parish in the hundred of CHIPPENHAM, county of WILTS, though locally in the hundred of Grumbald's Ash, county of Gloucester, 5 miles (S. by W.) from Dursley, containing 1391 inhabitants. The living is a perpetual curacy, in the archdeaconry and diocese of Gloucester, endowed with £200 private benefaction, £200 royal bounty, and £1000 parliamentary grant, and in the patronage of the Inhabitants. The church is dedicated to St. Mary. There are places of worship for Independents and Wesleyan Methodists.

The parish is watered by the Middle Avon, on the banks of which river are several extensive cloth manufactories. A free school for teaching children to read and write was endowed with £50 per annum, in 1674, by John Mayo, Esq. An abbey of Cistercian monks from Tintern was founded here, in 1139, by William de Berkeley, in honour of the Blessed Virgin, but the society afterwards removed to Tetbury. In 1170 they once more removed, and settled at Mireford in Kingswood, near the old site, and at the dissolution possessed a revenue of £254. 11. 2. The only remains of the monastic buildings are the foundations of the two churches and a gate-house of the gable form, with a range of ruins on each side.