Little Chesterford, Essex Genealogy

England   Essex

Parish History
Little Chesterford St Mary is an Ancient Parish in Essex. The grouping of church, manor house and village hall form the heart of the village. The church of St Mary dates from the early 13th century and retains much of its original form, having a long aisle-less nave and chancel under a single roof. The main furnishings of interest are the simple 15th century screen, the recently restored monument of James Walsingham (1728) – an early work by Henery Cheere - and the brass to George and Isabel Langham (1462). The church was restored during the 19th century including the addition of a vestry and the building of a bell-cot for two bells at the west end.

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.

CHESTERFORD, LITTLE (St. Mary), a parish, in the union of Saffron-Walden, hundred of Uttlesford, N. division of Essex, 3 miles (N. W. by N.) from Saffron-Walden; containing 229 inhabitants. It is separated from the parish of Littlebury by the river Granta, and comprises 1166a. 3r. 9p., of which about 65 acres are pasture, 107 woodland, and the rest arable. The living is a rectory, annexed to the vicarage of Great Chesterford, and valued in the king's books at £11. The church is a small edifice, partly in the early and partly in the decorated English style; the chancel is separated from the nave by a screen of wood, and contains an ancient tomb of marble, with a recumbent figure of a member of the Walsingham family. There are places of worship for Baptists and Wesleyans.

From: 'Cheshunt - Chetwood', A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 576-586. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50871 Date accessed: 15 February 2011.

Little Chesterford is a village and civil parish in Uttlesford Essex, close to the Cambridgeshire border. It is built principally along a single sunken lane to the east of a tributary of the River Cam or Granta. It is located 1 km southeast of Great Chesterford and some 5 km northwest of Saffron Walden.The small hamlet of Springwell is just to the south of the village. Up the hill to the east is Chesterford Park, with a mid-19th century mansion in a 250 acre (approx. 100 hectare) estate and now a science park known as Chesterford Research Park.

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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 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
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