Thornborough

The following reference sources have been used in the construction of this page, and may be referred to for further detail. Most if not all of these volumes are available in the Reference section of the County Library in Aylesbury.

"Buckinghamshire Contributions for Ireland 1642", Wilson J., 1983.
"Buckinghamshire Returns of the Census of Religious Worship 1851", Legg E. ed., 1991, ISBN 0 901198 27 7.
"Magna Britannia: Buckinghamshire", Lysons S. and Lysons D., 1806.
"The Place-Names of Buckinghamshire", Mawer A. and Stenton F.M., 1925.
"The Victoria History of the Counties of England: Buckinghamshire", Page W. ed., 1905-1928
"War Memorials and War Graves: Buckingham Hundred, Volume 7", Peter Quick.

War Memorials

War memorials in Thornborough have been transcribed by Peter Quick, and published in a booklet entitled "War Memorials and War Graves: Buckingham Hundred, Volume 7", available from the Buckinghamshire Genealogical Society.

In 1642 there were 37 people named in the tax returns for contributions for Ireland. Between them they were assessed at £2.3.6 of which sum James Carye vicar contributed £0.5.0

In 1798 the Posse Comitatus listed 109 men between the ages of 16 and 60 in Thornborough.

In the earliest government census of 1801, there were 458 inhabitants in 115 families living in 84 houses recorded in Thornborough.

* = No names were recorded in census documents from 1801 to 1831.
** = Census documents from 1911 to 2001 are only available in summary form. Names are witheld under the 100 year rule.

Microfilm copies of all census enumerators' notebooks for 1841 to 1891 are held at the Local Studies Libraries at Aylesbury and Milton Keynes, as well as centrally at the PRO. A table of 19th century census headcount by parish is printed in the VCH of Bucks, Vol.2, pp 96-101.

Availability of census transcripts and indexes.

• 1851 - Full transcripts and indexes for Buckinghamshire are available on CD-ROM, hard copy and microfiche from the Buckinghamshire Family History Society.
• 1861 - Available on CD-ROM with advanced search and mapping capabilities etc. from the Buckinghamshire Genealogical Society.
• 1881
  • Available on CD-ROM from the Church of the Latter Day Saints, as part of the National 1881 Census Index.
  • Available on CD-ROM for Buckinghamshire, with advanced search and mapping capabilities etc. from Drake Software.
• 1891 - Available on CD-ROM with advanced search and mapping capabilities etc. from the Buckinghamshire Genealogical Society.

• Vicars of the Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin

Details of the stained glass in the church can be found on the following web sites (the site includes many photos):

• Buckinghamshire Stained Glass

The original copies of the parish registers for St Mary the Virgin, Thornborough have been deposited in the Buckinghamshire Record Office in Aylesbury, and they hold the following years:

Copies or indexes to the parish registers are available from societies as follows:

* = material held in a Society library is generally available for loan to all members either via post, or by collection at a meeting

An ecclesiastical census was carried out throughout England on 30 March 1851 to record the attendance at all places of worship. These returns are in the Buckinghamshire Record Office and have been published by the Buckinghamshire Record Society (vol 27). The returns for Thornborough showed the following numbers:

• Buckinghamshire Church Photos by Kevin Quick.
• Buckinghamshire Village Photos by Kevin Quick.

• Geograph
• Flickr

• Ask for a calculation of the distance from Thornborough to another place.

Thornborough was described in 1806 in "Magna Britannia" as follows:

THORNBOROUGH, in the hundred and deanery of Buckingham, lies about three miles and a half to the east of the county town. The manor belonged to the priory of Luffield, and was given, with the site of that monastery, to Sir Nicholas Throckmorton. Having passed by marriage to the family of Temple; to Thomas Roper, Lord Viscount Baltinglass; and Thomas Lennard Earl of Sussex, it was sold by the latter in 1707 to Benjamin Woodnoth, of whose family it was purchased by the late Earl Verney: it is now the property of his niece Mary Baroness Fermanagh.

The manor, or reputed manor, of Bartons in this parish, belonging to the Marquis of Buckingham, is the same, probably, which belonged in the fourteenth century to the Damorys and afterwards to the Bartons of Thornton, who gave it by way of endowment to some chantries of their foundation. This chantry estate was granted in 1553 to Edward Chamberlain; it came into the Temple family in 1561 by purchase from Richard Sanders, who bought it of the original grantee. The president and scholars of Magdalen college in Oxford, have an estate in Thornborough, for which they hold a court-baron: it formed in ancient times part of the endowment of St. John's hospital in Oxford, which was sold about the year 1456, with all its lands to William Waynfleet bishop of Winchester, founder of Magdalen college.

In the church are some memorials of the Woodnoths. The rectory was given to the priory of Luffield by an ancestor of the Barons of Wolverton, and the great tithes were appropriated to that monastery. After the reformation the rectory was for many years annexed to the manor, but is now the property of the Marquis of Buckingham, who is patron of the vicarage. The parish has been inclosed by an act of parliament passed in 1797, when an allotment of land was given to the Marquis of Buckingham as rector, another allotment to the family of Lowndes as proprietors of a portion of tithes, and a corn rent to the vicar with a small allotment of land not exceeding 15 acres. An allotment of land was assigned to the poor in lieu of their right of cutting furze.

You can see maps centred on OS grid reference SP744337 (Lat/Lon: 51.996771, -0.917755), Thornborough which are provided by:

• OpenStreetMap
• Google Maps
• StreetMap (Current Ordnance Survey maps)
• Bing (was Multimap)
• Old Maps Online
• National Library of Scotland (Old Ordnance Survey maps)
• Vision of Britain (Click "Historical units & statistics" for administrative areas.)
• English Jurisdictions in 1851 (Unfortunately the LDS have removed the facility to enable us to specify a starting location, you will need to search yourself on their map.)
• Magic (Geographic information) (Click + on map if it doesn't show)
• GeoHack (Links to on-line maps and location specific services.)

• All places within the same township/parish shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby townships/parishes shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby places shown on an Openstreetmap map.

The name of Thornborough derives from the old english thorn + burh, and means 'hill where thorn-trees grow'.