Place:Areley Kings, Worcestershire, England

Watchers
NameAreley Kings
TypeVillage, Parish
Coordinates52.3313°N 2.2934°W
Located inWorcestershire, England
Also located inHereford and Worcester, England     (1974 - 1998)
Worcestershire, England     (1998 - )
See alsoDoddingtree Hundred, Worcestershire, Englandhundred of which the parish was a part
Martley Rural, Worcestershire, Englandrural district of which it was part 1894-1933
Astley, Worcestershire, Englandadjacent parish which absorbed part of Areley Kings in 1933
Stourport-on-Severn, Worcestershire, Englandadjacent town which absorbed part of Areley Kings in 1933
source: Family History Library Catalog
the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Areley Kings is a Worcestershire village on the River Severn 10 miles north of Worcester in the picturesque area of the Wyre Forest. The area is featured in the Domesday Book and many historical places of interest are open to visitors. Nearby Stourport-on-Severn grew during the Victorian era and is still very popular with tourists and holiday makers all year round for canal and river cruising and for the many well signed walks through some of the finest Worcestershire countryside.

end of Wikipedia contribution

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Areley Kings from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"ARELEY (King's), a parish in Martley [registration] district, Worcester; on the river Severn, ½ a mile SW of Stourport [railway] station. It contains the hamlet of Dunley; and its post town is Stourport. Acres: 1,449. Real property: £3,659. Population: 564. Houses: 138. The property is much subdivided. An eminence on which the church is situated commands an extensive prospect. Areley House and Areley Hall are chief residences. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Worcester. Value: £346. Patron: the Rev. H. J. Hastings. The church is early English, with a Norman doorway. A rude sepulchral monument, inscribed with a quaint rhyming distich, said to be to the memory of Sir Henry Coningsby of Herefordshire, is in the churchyard. Layamon, author of an ancient British history, was a native. Charities, £19."

From 1894 until 1933 Areley Kings was a parish in the Martley Rural District. In 1933 the parish was split between the adjacent Astley parish and the town of Stourport-on-Severn. Since 1974 the Stourport section has been part of the Wyre Forest District and the Astley portion part of the Malvern Hills District. Both districts were in the county of Hereford and Worcester from 1974 until 1998, and then in Worcestershire again.

There is a sketchmap of the parishes of Martley Rural District on the rural district page. Areley Kings, having been abolished as a parish in 1933, is not on the map.

  • Ordnance Survey Maps of England and Wales - Revised: Worcestershire illustrates the parish boundaries of Worcestershire when rural districts were still in existence and before the West Midlands came into being. The map publication year is 1931. The map blows up to show all the parishes and many of the small villages and hamlets. Maps in this series are now downloadable for personal use.
  • British History Online has a large collection of local maps from the Ordnance Survey 1883-1893. These blow up to a size that permits viewing of individual hamlets, farms, collieries, but there is no overlapping of one map to the next, and no overall map to tie the individual ones together.
  • British History Online also has three volumes of the Victoria County History of Worcestershire online. Volume 3 (published in 1913) deals with the Halfshire Hundred; Volume 4 (published in 1924) deals with the City of Worcester, as well as parishes in the hundreds of Pershore and Doddingtree. Volume 2 covers religious houses in the county. The remainder of the county is not represented in the British History Online series.
  • GENUKI makes a great many suggestions as to other websites with worthwhile information about Worcestershire as well as leading to a collection of 19th century descriptions of each of the ecclesiastical parishes.
  • The FamilySearch Wiki provides a similar information service to GENUKI which may be more up-to-date. An index of parishes leads to notes and references for each parish. The auxiliary website English Jurisdictions can also be helpful.
  • Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service, The Hive, Sawmill Walk, The Butts, Worcester WR1 3PD (Telephone: 01905 822866, e-mail: archive@worcestershire.gov.uk) The Archives Collections Catalog Summary outlines the contents of the Archives Collection and also notes on what has been transferred to the national online service Access to Archives
  • The Birmingham & Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry has a branch in Bromsgrove which deals in Worcestershire family history. There are also branches at Stourbridge and Worcester.
  • The Midlands Historical Data project produces searchable facsimile copies of old local history books and directories of interest to genealogists. It specialises in the three counties of Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Staffordshire, working closely with libraries, archives and family history societies in the area. Digital images are made freely available to participating organisations to improve public access. Free search index on its web-site to all its books. In many cases payment will be required to see the extract.
  • A Vision of Britain through Time has
  1. organization charts of the hierarchies of parishes within hundreds, registration districts and rural and urban districts of the 20th century
  2. excerpts from a gazetteer of circa 1870 outlining individual towns and parishes
  3. reviews of population through the time period 1800-1960
  • Brett Langston's list of Worcestershire Registration Districts and parishes within each registration district from 1837 to the present can indicate where to find details of civil registration entries since the process began in England.
  • More local sources can often be found by referring to "What Links Here" in the column on the left.
  • A History of the County of Worcester: Volume 4 edited by William Page and J W Willis-Bund covers the city of Worcester, as well as parishes in the hundreds of Pershore and Doddingtree, in the south and west of the county. These include the towns of Pershore, Great Malvern and Hanley Castle. (Victoria County History - Worcestershire. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1924, and available free online from British History Online)
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Areley Kings. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.