Chingford, Essex Genealogy

England   Essex

Parish History
Chingford All Saints is an Ancient parish in Essex.

One notable local landmark is Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge. Originally called the Great Standing, it was built for King Henry VIII of England in 1543, and was used as a grandstand to watch the hunting of deer, although it has been heavily altered over time. The building is located on Chingford Plain within Epping Forest and is open to the public.

All Saints' Church in Chingford Mount (known locally as The Old Church) dates back to the 12th Century. Directly opposite from the church is Chingford Mount Cemetery, best known today as the burial place of the Kray family at Chingford Mount Cemetery.

The diocese of Chelmsford was created in 1914, prior to this Essex parishes were in the jurisdiction of the Bishops of London until 1845 when they transferred to the diocese of Rochester. The diocese of Chelmsford has 474 parishes and 600 churches and is the second largest region in the church of England outside London.

A granite obelisk at Pole Hill was erected in 1824 under the direction of the Astronomer Royal, the Rev. John Pond M.A., to mark true north for the telescopes of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, south of the Thames. It was placed on high ground along the line of the Greenwich Meridian, but when this was recalibrated later in the 19th century the obelisk was deemed to have been erected 19 feet (5.8 m) west of the revised meridian line. Today an adjoining triangulation pillar marks the modern line.

Friday Hill House Simmons Lane. The present building dating from 1839 was a manor house built and owned by Robert Boothby Heathcote, who was both the lord of the manor and rector of the local church. It was he who paid for the building of the church of St Peter and St Paul in Chingford. He is buried in the Boothby family vault in All Saints churchyard (Chingford Old Church), Old Church Road. The vault was purchased by Robert Boothby (died 1733), who lived in the previous manor house. The present building is now used as a further education centre.

Chingford is a town in northeast London, England, and part of the London Borough of Waltham Forest. It is a suburban town situated 10 miles (16.1 km) northeast of Charing Cross. To the north and east of Chingford is Epping Forest and the boundary with Essex.

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Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from July 1837 to the present day. The civil registration article tells more about these records. There are several Internet sites with name lists or indexes. A popular site is FreeBMD.

Church records
Contributor: Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts, non conformist and other types of church records, such as parish chest records. Add the contact information for the office holding the original records. Add links to the Family History Library Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection

Census records
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Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Essex Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Maps and Gazetteers
Maps are a visual look at the locations in England. Gazetteers contain brief summaries about a place.
 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
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