WHITESHILL, with the hamlets of Bread Street and Ruscombe, and a part of Pakenhill, was formed into an ecclesiastical parish, Feb. 2, 1844, from the parishes of Standish and Stroud: by an Order of the Gloucestershire County Council, dated 10th August, 1894, it was constituted a civil parish; it is 1 mile north-west from Stroud station on the Midland and Great Western railways, in the Stroud division of the county, union county court district and petty sessional division of Stroud, rural deanery of Bisley, archdeaconry and diocese of Gloucester.

The church of St. Paul, erected in the year 1840, is a building of stone in the Norman style, consisting of apsidal chancel, nave, transepts (added to the church in 1881-2), and an embattled western tower containing one bell: there are numerous stained windows, and the apse is adorned with paintings of the Twelve Apostles, executed by the Misses Stanton, of Upfield: the church was restored in 1882 at a cost of £916, and transepts added; it was further restored in 1888 at a cost of £30, and again during 1906-7 at a cost of about £600: it affords 600 sittings. The register dates from the year 1845.

The living is a perpetual curacy, net yearly value £230, including 3 acres of glebe and cottages, with residence, in the gift of the Bishop of Gloucester, and held since 1922 by the Rev. William Thomas Brien L.Div. of St. David's College, Lampeter. There is a Congregational chapel at RUSCOMBE, erected in 1828, to which a burial ground was attached in 1876. The trustees of the Cripps family are the principal landowners. There are no manorial rights. The soil is loamy; subsoil, stone beds. The chief crops are wheat, turnips and some land in pasture. The area is 520 acres; assessable value, £2,357; the population in 1911 was 1,342 in the civil and 1,464 in the ecclesiastical parish.

BREAD STREET hamlet is half a mile west.

PAKENHILL (or PAGAN HILL) is a hamlet half a mile south, partly in this, but principally in the parish of Stroud. Field Place is the residence of Arthur William Stanton esq. J.P.

RUSCOMBE hamlet is a quarter of a mile north-west.

Parish Clerk, Sidney Gay.

Post Office.- Edward Clark, sub-postmaster. Letters through Stroud, which is the nearest money order & telegraph office, 1 mile distant.

SCHOOLS.
Public Elementary (girls & infants), built in 1858, & enlarged in 1888, for 170 children; Miss Louisa Ratcliffe, mistress

Public Elementary (boys), for 112 children; there is a master's residence; Albert Billett, master
[Kelly's Directory of Gloucestershire, 1923]