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![]() ![]() The name of Stratford is derived from its situation on the great north road, leading from London to Worcester, being a fusion of the Old English stręt, meaning "street", and ford, meaning that a Roman road forded the River Avon at the site of the town. By the late 7th century a monastry was located on the site that would later become Stratford. The Doomsday-book records there was a church and a mill. By 1291 the parish had 140 acres of arable land and many trades were represented, including weavers, tanners, tailors, carpenters, dyers, white-smiths, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, flesh mongers, shoemakers and coopers. Stratford is close to the Cotswolds. As a major sheep-producing area, the Cotswolds, up until the latter part of the 19th century, regarded Stratford as one of its main centres for the slaughter, marketing, and distribution of sheep and wool. As a consequence Stratford also became a centre for tanning during the 15th-17th centuries. Both the river and the Roman road served as trade routes for the town. A number of useful resources exist for genealogical research in and around Stratford-Upon-Avon. The IGI (International Genealogical Index) has a fairly comprehensive coverage for the neighbouring parish of Alveston (for baptisms & marriages) and a reasonable coverage for Stratford itself, although with some gaps. Published volumes of parish register extracts for Stratford are available at archives.org (and elsewhere on the internet), often with considerably more detail that available in the IGI (occupations, abodes, social status etc). These also include burials. Several books focusing on the parish, also available on archive.iorg, include not only detailed background material on the town but also monument inscriptions from the parish church, Holy Trinity. Stratford is also rare in that the records of the Corporation of Stratford-Upon-Avon still exist and have been transcribed in over a dozen volumes. These records contain a wealth of background information on the residents of Stratford, especially (but not limited) to the middle class. These volumes are also available at archives.org. The British National Archives also contain an extensive number of records relating to Stratford, including legal firm records covering several centuries. |