Easthorpe, Essex Genealogy

England   Essex

Parish History
Easthorpe St mary is an Ancient parish in Essex..

The church of ST. MARY, Easthorpe Road, the dedication of which was recorded in 1427, was built of mixed materials with Roman brick in the dressings, and has an undivided nave and chancel with a west bell turret and spire of timber. The nave and west end of the chancel, which originally had an apse, are 12th-century and of that period are all or part of five windows and north and south nave doorways. In the mid 13th century the apse was destroyed and the chancel lengthened: it has an east triplet of lancets and sedilia, both enriched, and a piscina. Paintings in the splays of a nave window may also be 13th-century. The east end of the nave and west end of the chancel were mostly refen- estrated in the 14th century, a west window inserted, and a tomb recess, which incorporates a quatrefoil window, was made in the nave south wall. In the 15th century the porch, recon- structed in 1910, and a stoup were added, as was a rood loft from which rood-stair doorways remain. In 1685 the floor needed mending in several places and the tiled roof needed repair. One nave window seems to date from the 16th or 17th century and the communion table is 17th- century. There was presumably a west bell- turret by 1705 when the steeple needed shingl- ing. It was repaired in 1866 and in 1910. By 1892 the nave roof and walls and the porch were in poor condition, and the church was exten- sively restored in 1910-11 by F. Hutton of Birch, builder, to plans by Wykeham Chan- cellor. The walls were repaired, especially the north wall where a buttress was built, a new roof was constructed, the tower was straightened and the north doorway was reopened. The old vestry was removed. The church was reseated with chairs and refloored and a pulpit was provided. In the tomb recess window is stained glass with several coats of arms; there are also remains of arms in a chancel south window. In 1831 there was in a north window a figure of an armed knight, with a red cross on his breast, supported under his arms by two angels, his helmet being removed by another angel. Members of the Kingsmill family, buried in the chancel, are commemorated by floor slabs. There is a medie- val scratch-dial. The church sustained minor damage in the Second World War. The tower was damaged in a gale c. 1969, and subsequently restored. Two bells were sold at the Reformation. Two bells were recorded in 1867 and 1877, one of which was of 1663 by Miles Gray, which sur- vived in 1909 and was an exact duplicate of the single bell at Abberton. The plate included a small Elizabethan silver chalice and cover; a pewter flagon was recorded in 1685.

From: 'Easthorpe: Church', A History of the County of Essex: Volume 10: Lexden Hundred (Part) including Dedham, Earls Colne and Wivenhoe (2001), pp. 203-205. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=15237&amp;amp;strquery=easthorpe Date accessed: 12 February 2011.

Easthorpe is a small village and civil parish in the Colchester District of Essex. Easthorpe is on an old Roman road. Nearby settlements include the large town of Colchester and the villages of Marks Tey, Copford and Copford Green.

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
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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
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Web sites
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