Place:Fordingbridge, Hampshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Fordingbridge is a town and civil parish in the New Forest District of Hampshire, near to the Dorset and Wiltshire county borders and on the edge of the New Forest. It is 81 miles (130 km) southwest of London, and 10 miles (16 km) south of the city of Salisbury. Fordingbridge is a former market town on the River Avon with a 21st century population of 5,700. The parish includes the hamlets of Burgate to the north, Criddlestyle to the east, Bickton to the south, and Ashford to the west. Three further hamlets just outside the New Forest National Park are Brookheath, Tinker's Cross and East Mills.

Cloth was made here in the 16th century, and in the 19th century there were factories for the manufacture of sailcloth and canvas and the spinning of flax. By 1900 the chief industries of the town were the manufacture of sailcloth and canvas and the making of bricks and tiles, and there were various flourmills, an iron foundry, and the Neave's food works.

Wikipedia reports some notable people from the past who had links with Fordingbridge:

• Major General Andrew Hay – British Army officer, born in 1762 and moved to Fordingbridge in 1802 until his death at the Battle of Bayonne in 1814
• Charles Chubb – (1779–1845), an English lock and safe manufacturer
• James Alexander Seton (1816–1845), the last British person killed in a duel in Britain; he is buried at St Mary's Church
• John Charles Durant – (15 July 1846 – 14 December 1929) was an English printer and a Liberal politician
• Augustus John – Welsh portrait artist, born 1878, who lived in Fordingbridge from 1927 until his death in 1961

Hyde

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Hyde is a village which until 1979 was located within the civil parish of Fordingbridge. In 2001 the UK census recorded a population of 906.

The current parish of Hyde is mostly within the boundary of the New Forest National Park. It includes the hamlets of Blissford, Frogham, Hungerford, North Gorley, Ogdens, and Stuckton, as well as tracts of New Forest heathland centred on the Latchmore Brook to the east.

Historically Hyde was a hamlet belonging to the parish of Fordingbridge. The ecclesiastical parish of Hyde was formed in 1855 from part of the parish of Fordingbridge. The church of the Holy Ascension was built in 1855, and is of red brick with stone dressings and consists of chancel, nave, north vestry, south porch and western turret containing two bells.

The village of Hyde remained in the civil parish of Fordingbridge, although from 1868 lands to the east of the village were part of a parish called Ashley Walk, which lasted until 1932 when Ashley Walk was incorporated into an enlarged Fordingbridge parish. The civil parish of Hyde was not created until 1979.

Research Tips

• Victoria County History of Hampshire, volume 4, chapter on Fordingbridge.
• GENUKI has a list of archive holders in Hampshire including the Hampshire Record Office, various museums in Portsmouth and Southhampton, the Isle of Wight Record Office and Archives.
• The Hampshire Online Parish Clerk project has a large collection of transcriptions from Parish Registers across Hampshire.
• A listing of all the Registration Districts in England and Wales since their introduction in 1837 together with tables listing the parishes that were part of each district and the time period covered, along with detailed notes on changes of parish name, mergers, etc. Do respect the copyright on this material.
• The three-storey City Museum in Winchester covers the Iron Age and Roman periods, the Middle Ages, and the Victorian period.
• Volumes in The Victoria County History Series are available for Hampshire through British History Online. There are three volumes and the county is covered by parishes within the old divisions of "hundreds".

A collection of maps on the A Vision of Britain through Time website illustrating the English county of Hampshire over the period 1832-1932 (the last two are expandible):

• The Hundreds of Hampshire, a map from HMSO Boundary Commissioners, dated 1832
• Hampshire showing parishes in their Rural Districts as of 1900, a map from the Ordnance Survey
• Hampshire showing parishes in their Rural Districts after the alterations of 1932, a map from the Ordnance Survey

• A group of maps of the post-1974 municipal districts or boroughs of Hampshire on Wikipedia Commons