KINGSTON-UPON-THAMES

"KINGSTON-UPON-THAMES, a parish, post and market town, and municipal borough, in the first division of the hundred of Kingston, county Surrey, 10 miles from Vauxhall Bridge, 10 from Hyde Park Corner, and 12 S.W. of London. It is a station on the South-Western railway. A railway diverging from the Windsor line at Twickenham also runs into the Old Town. It is situated at the junction of the New-Mill river, formerly called Hogsmill or Ewell, with the Thames." (There is more of this description).

"HAM, (or Ham-with-hatch), a village and district parish in the parish of Kingston-upon-Thames, county Surrey, 2 miles N. of Kingston. It is situated on the Thames near Richmond Park. Part of the land is laid out in market gardens.

The living is a perpetual curacy* in the diocese of Winchester, value £100, in the patronage of the Vicar of Kingston. The church, which is dedicated to St. Andrew, stands on the common. The register dates from 1832, when the church was built. The Independents and Wesleyans have places of worship.

There are infant and National schools built on the common. At Hatch is situated the National Orphan Asylum, built in 1862, affording accommodation for 200 girls, who are educated till they are fifteen years, of age, when the authorities procure them situations. In the vicinity is Ham House, built by the Vavasors in the reign of James I., and belonging to the earls of Dysart. It contains a good collection of paintings, including a portrait by Lely of the Duke of Lauderdale, one of the Cabal ministry, which frequently met here; several by Vandyck and Reynolds, and frescoes by Verrio. A fair is held at the end of May, chiefly for pedlery. At Robin Hood, a hamlet in this district parish, is a small chapel, built in 1838.

"HATCH, a hamlet in the parish of Kingston-upon-Thames, county Surrey, 2 miles from Kingston. It is united with Ham."

"HOOK, a hamlet in the parish of Kingston-upon-Thames, first division of the hundred of Kingston, county Surrey, 3 miles S. of Kingston, its post town, 3½ N.W. of Epsom, and 2 S. of the Kingston railway station. Hook, formerly called La Hoke, is of ancient date; it is situated on the Dorking road, and was made an ecclesiastical district under the Marquis of Blandford's Act. The living is a perpetual curacy in the diocese of Winchester, value £80, in the patronage of the bishop. The church, which was erected in 1838, is a small structure, with a gable belfry, and is dedicated to St. Paul. There is a National school erected in 1869 by voluntary contributions. Barwell Court, situated about 1 mile S.W., is the principal residence."

"KINGSTON-GATE, a hamlet in the parish of Kingston-upon-Thames, county Surrey, 1 mile N. of Kingston."

"KINGSTON-UPON-RAILWAY, a township and village in the parish of Kingston-upon-Thames, county Surrey, 1 mile S. of Kingston, and 10 miles from London by the South-Western railway. It is a place of modern growth, containing many villas occupied by merchants and tradesmen residing in London, to whom it affords great facility, from its frequent express trains to London. The extension of the Hampton Court branch has also an intermediate station at Thames-Ditton. There is a church recently erected, and several private schools."

"NORBITON, a hamlet in the parish of Kingston-upon-Thames, county Surrey, adjoining Kingston, and 12 miles S.W. of London. It is situated at the junction of the river Hogsmill with the Thames.

The living is a perpetual curacy in the diocese of Winchester, value £100, in the patronage of the Vicar of Kingston. The church is dedicated to St. Peter. The principal residence is Norbiton Lodge, formerly the seat of the Taveners."

"SURBITON, a hamlet in the parish of Kingston-upon-Thames, county Surrey, half a mile S. of Kingston. It is a station on the London and South-Western railway. The village is situated on the Thames, near Surbiton Hill, and contains several villa residences.

The living is a perpetual curacy in the diocese of Winchester, value £70. The church is dedicated to St. Peter."

[Description(s) from The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868)
Transcribed by Colin Hinson ©2003] These pages are intended for personal use only, so please respect the conditions of use.

KINGSTON-UPON-THAMES, a parish, post and market town, and municipal borough, in the first division of the hundred of Kingston, county Surrey, 10 miles from Vauxhall Bridge, 10 from Hyde Park Corner, and 12 S.W. of London. It is a station on the South-Western railway. A railway diverging from the Windsor line at Twickenham also runs into the Old Town. It is situated at the junction of the New-Mill river, formerly called Hogsmill or Ewell, with the Thames.

It was called by the Saxons Moreford, but subsequently took the name of Kyningestun, from its having been held in royal demesne, and the place in which many of the Saxon kings were crowned, among whom were Athelstan, Edwin, Ethelred, Edward the Elder, Edmund, Edward the Martyr, and Eldred. Near to the assize court is the coronation stone of the above kings, which is 3½ feet long. It was newly railed in 1850, when coins of the same kings were placed therein.

Kingston of late has greatly increased in population, and contains many handsome villas, the residences of merchants and tradesmen residing in London. The town is well paved, lighted with gas, and well supplied with water, partly by pumps and partly from a conduit on Combe-hill, the water of which is conveyed by pipes under the river Thames, laid down by Cardinal Wolsey for the supply of Hampton Court Palace. The streets have been much widened and improved, and near the station of the South-Western railway an entirely now town has been formed.

The noble five-arched bridge of Portland stone connecting Hampton Wick with Kingston was completed in 1828, at a cost of £40,000, in lieu of a wooden one built prior to the reign of Henry III. In connection with this bridge we may mention a curious petition still extant in the Public Record Office, of the king's footmen to Charles II. praying a grant of the fines which may he imposed on the bailiffs of Kingston (they prosecuting the suit at their own charges), for pulling down a part of Kingston Bridge, purposely to raise a benefit for the bailiffs there by the use of ferry boats to convey passengers, in consequence of which abuse, no watch being kept at the bridge, two children were drowned in the night.

There are malt houses, corn, flax, and oil mills, with breweries and a distillery. The public buildings are, the townhall, house of correction, now used for the barracks of the county militia, county court, gas works, corn and cattle market, union poorhouse, burial board, and police station. Kingston is governed by a mayor, 8 aldermen, and 24 councillors, and is divided into four wards, each ward returning six members.

A county court is held every fourth Tuesday for the parishes in Kingston hundred, and petty sessions are held every Thursday for the county, and every Wednesday for the borough. The quarter sessions are held in October. The Lent assizes are also held here. It is a polling place for East Surrey, and was once a parliamentary borough, returning members to the parliaments from 4 Edward II. to 47 Edward III.

The living is a vicarage* in the diocese of Winchester, value £500, in the patronage of King's College, Cambridge. The parish church, dedicated to All Saints, has been lately restored. It is an ancient cruciform structure with a tower rising from the intersection, formerly surmounted by a spire, which, having been destroyed by lightning in 1703, was taken down, and a portion of the church, of great antiquity, fell in 1730. The interior contains two brasses, one of which is to Skerne, the founder of the chantry, whose wife was daughter to Alice Piere, Edward III.'s mistress, and wife of Sir W. de Wyndeson, of Down Hall; also a monument to Bute, physician of Charles I.

In addition to the parish church, there are six district churches, at Ham, St. Andrew's, Norbiton Hook, St. Paul's, Robin-Hood Gate for Kingston Vale, Surbiton, and Christ Church, the livings of which are all perpetual curacies, varying in value from £600 to £80. The district church of St. Mark at Surbiton was consecrated in 1845. The old church, with figures of the Saxon kings, fell, down in 1775. The church of St. Peter, at the Norbiton end of the village, which was erected at the cost of £4,000 by subscriptions, is a handsome building of brick, with a square tower containing one bell. The charities produce about £1,182 per annum. There are Alderman Cleave's almshouses for 12 poor aged men and women. At Norbiton is the Cambridge asylum for soldiers' widows, the foundation stone of which was laid by the late Prince Consort in 1852. It has a chapel adjoining.

There are grammar, blue-coat, National, and infant schools. The Independents, Baptists, Wesleyans, and Roman Catholics, have places of worship. Many Roman antiquities have been discovered in the immediate vicinity of the town, which induced Dr. Gale to identify this place as occupying the site of the ancient Tamesa mentioned by the geographer of Ravenna. On digging the foundation of the new bridge across the river, several Roman military weapons were found.

[Description(s) from The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868)
Transcribed by Colin Hinson ©2003] These pages are intended for personal use only, so please respect the conditions of use.

 

EAST GRINSTEAD

"EAST GRINSTEAD, a parish and market town in the hundred of East Grinstead, county Sussex, and also partly in the county of Surrey, 8 miles to the E. of the Three Bridges station on the South Coast railway, 30 from London by the Lewes road, or 36 by the Brighton and South Coast line. It is a borough by prescription, and formerly returned two members to parliament, but was disfranchised at the passing of the Reform Bill. The town consists principally of one main street, and is lighted with gas and well supplied with water. There is a literary association with a good library, two branch banks, a savings-bank at the post-office, and a penny savings-bank, two breweries, brick and tile making works, and a parchment manufactory, which give employment to many of the townspeople. It is the head of a Poor-law Union comprising six parishes in Sussex and one in Surrey, a superintendent registry, and a new County Court district, which is held every fourth Wednesday.

The living is a vicarage* in the diocese of Chichester, value £320. The church, dedicated to St. Swithin, is a stone structure with tower containing a peal of eight bells. Besides the parish church, there is a district church at Forest Row, the living of which is a perpetual curacy, value £150, in the gift of the vicar. In 1608 Sackvill College was founded for the maintenance of 21 poor men, and 10 poor women, all unmarried, there "to pray, serve, honour, and praise Almighty God." It is under the patronage of the Countess Amherst and the Countess De la Warr, descendants of the founder, Robert Earl of Dorset; but the number was reduced to 24 some years back in consequence of a loss of property. St. Margaret's Home and Orphanage is a sisterhood for attending the sick, with a school attached. Here is a Congregational chapel, and one of Lady Huntingdon's Connexion; a free grammar school with an endowment, and a National school for boys and girls. Earl Gage, Lord Amherst, Earl De la Warr, A. G. Biddulph, A. F. Meyrick and William Pearless, Esqs., are lords of the several manors comprised within this parish. Thursday is market day for corn, and the last Thursday in each month for cattle. Fairs are held on the 21st April and 11th December for cattle.

"ST. PIERRE GREEN, a hamlet in the parish of East Grinstead, county Surrey, 4 miles N.E. of East Grinstead. It is situated on the river Medway.

[Description(s) from The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868)
Transcribed by Colin Hinson ©2003] These pages are intended for personal use only, so please respect the conditions of use.

Search the GENUKI Gazetteer. [Click the Gazetteer link at the top of any page, not the search box which searches GENUKI pages.] 
The GENUKI Gazetteer covers the whole of England, Wales and Scotland and can be searched by place-name (or part of a place-name) or Ordnance Survey Grid Reference (six-figure, eg NZ183848). If there are multiple place-names matching the name you enter, you will initially be presented with a drop-down list of the matching place-names with their distances and bearings from London, England.

 

The GENUKI Church Database. [Click the Churches link at the top of any page, not the search box which searches GENUKI pages.]
This covers the whole of the UK and includes facilities for listing other churches and parishes within any specified distance of the parish church.

 

• The Vision of Britain site provides: A vision of Britain between 1801 and 2001. Including maps, statistical trends and historical descriptions. 
  - read the guide to searching places, units and locations 
  - check the sources on which this excellent site is based
• The downloadable PARLOC program is available from Dave & Chris Bennett's site.
• The Open Domesday project enables you to locates places (and their details) from the Domesday book.

 

GENUKI Gazetteer maintenance - Ireland

Basic information

All the Irish Civil Parishes and Townlands appear in the gazetteer, but for many we do not have an actual location. So as a starting point it uses the centre of the county when we have no location. Where we have a parish location we use that as a starting location for the townland. All very approximate but it helps guide reasearchers to the appropriate area and as we add locations it gets nearer and nearer to the real value. So most of this work is to achieve that. There is also other documentation describing how it is achieved.

• The status of each county section can be seen on the statistics page which helps identiy the amount of work required for each county.
• Details of the format of the source files and basic techniques are described in the Gazetteer maintenance page.
• Work already mostly done on developing the Irish counties is a useful adjunct.

Work required

The starting point for each county is to take a look at the Parishes column on the statistics page. If you hold the mouse over the numbers it explains what they represent. We want to get to the stage where there is just single number here where we've created a web page for each parish. If there is a name other than Phil Stringer in the Maintainers column then somebody is already working on this county.

In the end we want to get to the stage where there is nothing in the Approx column, and nothing in the No links column but it is easiest to do some of the tasks in a particular order.

Exact location for parish

In the Approx column, if there is a number marked Parishes with an approximate location this is the simplest one to resolve first. It is those parishes that had a location in our original data and location should be nearly right. Click the number for the names of the parishes, and click each name to see a page with links to online maps. Select This place shown on a Google map. Zoom the map appropriately and drag the icon to where you think the centre of that place is. You then have the correct value to go the csv file and can change the Approx field (column C)from Y to N. If you find the Google map does not take you to a place and ther is none nearby on the map, then perhaps then perhaps an error was made in the past. So use the instructions in the next step for finding the centre location of the parish.

Parishes where we need a location

These can be identified in the Parishes column, and are labelled Civil parishes for we don't yet have a location. Click the number and see the list of names. Click a name to take you to links to online maps, the ones in the south are much easier to do.

• North - the Irish Times site is your friend as it shows where they all are on a map. It is not always easy to relate this to the modern Google map as it does not show place names. But you need to open a Google map in another browser tab and pan it and move the marker to then centre of the area shown on the Irish Times. You then have the centre location of the parish.
• South - follow the link to the Irish Ordnance survey site. Use the search menu on the right, and select the county and then Historic parishes. That shows you a historic map of the parish along with its boundaries. Pan the map until the red cross is in the centre of the parish. Don't pan it again on subsequent clicks as it changes the location that you've just found!. I find it best then to go to the 'Preview map series' menu on the right and select 'Wind report' it changes to a modern map which is much easier to relate to the Google map. Zoom, without, panning so that you can see place names that you can relate to a Google map that you've open in another tab. So look at that the OS map with one eye and move the marker on the Google map to the same location. You then have the centre location of the parish.

Cut and paste the location (Lat/Lon) into column B in the csv file for that parish entry. Change the Approx field (column C) from Y to N. Now for all the townlands without a location in this parish, change the Approx field (column C) to P, and add the parish centre location to column B. This makes the most significant improvement to the gazetteer.

Places with no location at all

As updated versions of the csv file are updated the entries that need attention in the statistics file thankfully drop. At this point the Places with no location at all in the Approx column should now have disappeared. If not it is worth fixing these now as there will be very few left for this county. Sometimes you may see Market Town in column K with the name of a description in column L. Search the gazetteer for this place to read the description. It may tell you this is also a parish. If so copy column L into column L for the parish where it is missing and then you can probably just delete the duplicate Market Town entry. For others a Google search can help identify it and lead to a location.

Townlands with a parish centre location

We are now getting to the more tedious work, but once done it makes it much more useful for researchers. In the Approx column there is probably a significant number entitled Places with a parish location. This gives list of all the names which can be clicked to link to maps, such as Google centred on the parish centre, the value in that entry in the csv file. However going through this alphabetically can be slow and it isn't as easy to spot mistakes.

The easiest method I've found is to look in the csv file at all the entries in a parish, the smaller parishes being easier. Use the gazetteer to search for the entry for the parish and ask it to display all the places in the parish on a Google map. There will be townland names on the Google map which should match the ones you need to find. If none match then the parish location may be wrong! There do seem to townlands in other parishes with the same name as actual parishes. In the rare event that this has happened, then fix the parish centre location as described above. Drag and drop the marker on the map to find the location of the townlands and change the location field in the csv file and also change the Approx to N.

Start with the ones where we already have an approximate location as they show up reasonably easily to start with. Then compare the unknown townland names nearby on the Google map with the csv file. Where they match, drag and drop and you have another answer. Google does at times have two identical names close by. I tend to use the one in the larger font as that seems to be the older one. If both are the same size I drag to point mid-way between.

So what about the townlands that don't seem to be on the Google map? Well we can go to the Irish OS site and search for the townland and see where it is on the map. Be careful that the one you get is the one you want as there can be multiple townlands with the same name. Again a useful check is to look at adjacent ones on the map and see if they are in that parish in the cav file. The Irish OS technique can only be used for counties in the South as it doesn't have the countties and townlands in the search menu for the north. If it is a county in the North try the map provided by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency. We haven't found a way to link into a location so you will need to zoom and pan to the parish location and then search for townland names. There does seem to be better coverage than Google, and it appears to have more accurate locations.

There will be some very small townlands that the Irish OS site doesn't have in the menu. If it is an island, then browse the Irish OS 6" historic map for the parish and pan and zoom across the wet areas. It is easy to find island names there. For tiny townlands that aren't islands, try a Google search as somebody may have described the location. Otherwise you are left with panning the historic 6".

There is also a technique that will find the townlands plotted on a Google map. Go to https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@?dg=dbrw&newdg=1 and put the place and county in the search bar. It normally finds it and shows a marker on a map with a rough outline of the townland. What you want is the location of the marker. So right click next to the marker and a menu will appear. Select What's here? and the lat/lon is placed in the search bar. I tend to compare that with other places in the parish to make sure it is nearby and so the right one.

In the larger parishes I find it useful to put in a framework of townlands, upload the csv file, and wait for the nightly update. Things are then clearer on the map the next day. There is less clutter and it is easier to finds ones that still need doing. You need to zoom in for Google to make some visible.

The remaining places with approximate locations

That ones that are left with approximate locations come from the CIA World Fact Book. Some will be duplicates of existing places, some geographic features and some places smaller than townlands. So take each one in the list, and select nearby places on a Google map.

• Look at nearby places marked on the map, and if a duplicate, remove it from the csv file.
• I look at all Cross Roads and tend to remove any that match the name of a nearby townland. If it is a new name check on the Irish OS map and zoom in when it usually becomes visible. You then know the exact location and can drag/drop the Google marker. It is also useful loohing at the historic 6" to see which parish it was in, and put that name in the Parish field. The CIA didn't always get the spelling right, so make any adjustments that are needed.
• If it is a named bridge, then I keep these setting the exact location, and filling in the Parish name.
• Then any small places I treat in a similar way.

It is during this phase that the towlands with parish boundaries running through them become visible as we have two or more markers at the same spot. Zoom in to make it clearer and perhaps drag one to the side to check the names and the parishes.

We only want the user to be presented with a single place at that location. We don't multiple gazetteer entries for any of these as we are trying to specify where they are, not to document an administrative hierarchy. But we can do our best to tell the user that it is in multiple parishes. So for the first entry for the townland put the names of the parishes it lies in, in the parish field separating the names with a colon ':' character (without quotes). Then delete the entries from the other parishes. We then have a single place listing all the parishes it is in.

Gotchas

There do seem to be some parishes split across counties. If you find one, get in touch with Phil as he has devised a technique to handle it but has not yet implemented it.

 

The Post Office's Postcode Finder

 

The Post Office no longer supports their postcode finder tool. Instead they advise: for the most up-to-date address and postcode details, please use your preferred mapping service such as Google Maps or Apple Maps, or use a search engine.

 

• The GENUKI Gazetteer covers the whole of England, Wales and Scotland and can be searched by place-name (or part of a place-name) or Ordnance Survey Grid Reference (six-figure, eg NZ183848). If there are multiple place-names matching the name you enter, you will initially be presented with a drop-down list of the matching place-names with their distances and bearings from London, England.
• A Gazetteer of British Place Names provided by the Association of British Counties. This comprehensive place-name index for Britain lists more than 50,000 places and gives the Ordnance Survey grid reference, the ancient or geographical County, and current local government information for each place name. There is comprehensive coverage of alternative spellings (including Welsh and Gaelic versions) and detailed notes specifically aimed at historians and genealogists. Appendices relate present day registration districts to local government areas and list those places which lay in a different "registration county" to their ancient County in the 19th century.
• The GB1900  Project - a crowd-sourced historical gazetteer based on the 1:10560 Ordnance Survey mapping of Great Britain
• GENUKI Church Database provides an online Parish Locator covering the whole of the UK. This includes facilities for listing other churches and parishes within any specified distance of the parish church.
• UK Placename Finder from Popular Archaeology includes details of 160,000 UK places.
• The archived copy of the BBC Domesday Project Reloaded website provides a method of searching the contents of the original BBC Domesday Gazetteer disk - a huge crowd-sourced description of the UK, dating from 1986 - by using the TNA Discovery Catalogue's results filtering facility.

Some historical gazetteers:

Lewis, Samuel. A Topographical Dictionary of England. 4 vols. London: S. Lewis and Co., 1831

Southall, Humphrey; Aucott, Paula; Fleet, Christopher; Pert, Tom; Stoner, Michael. GB1900: engaging the public in very large scale gazetteer construction from the Ordnance Survey “County Series” 1:10,560 mapping of Great Britain. Journal of Map & Geography Libraries, Vol. 13, No. 1, (2017), p. 7-28. [PDF]

Wilson, John M. The Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales. Six Volumes. Edinburgh, Scotland: A. Fullerton, 1870

The National Gazetteer: A Topographical Dictionary of the British Islands. Virtue and Co., London (1868) 3 vols. [Full text - vol 1 (A-E), vol. 2 (F-M), vol. 3 (N-Z)]

Gazetteer of the British Isles. Edinburgh, Scotland: John Bartholomew and Sons, Ltd., 1966.