Place:Ewell, Surrey, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Ewell is a suburban area in the Borough of Epsom and Ewell in Surrey with a largely commercial village centre. It includes neighbourhoods named West Ewell, Ewell Court, East Ewell, Ewell Grove, and Ewell Downs, a rural locality on the slopes of the North Downs called North Looe. Remaining a large parish, Ewell occupies approximately the whole of the northeastern half of the borough except the section named Stoneleigh.

Ewell is on the border of Greater London at Cheam in the London Borough of Sutton and is 12 miles (19 km) from its centre.

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

"EWELL, a village in Epsom [registration] district, and a parish partly also in Reigate [registration] district, Surrey. The village stands at the head of the Hogs-Mill rivulet, adjacent to both the Croydon and Leatherhead railway and the Wimbledon and Leatherhead railway, 1¾ mile NNE of Epsom; and has stations on the railways, and a post office under Epsom; was formerly a market-town; and still has fairs on 13 May and 29 Oct. The parish includes the liberty of Kingswood. Acres: 4,221. Real property: £14,740; of which £35 are in gas-works. Population: 2,195. Houses: 427. The property is much subdivided. Ewell House is the seat of the Rev. Sir G. L. Glyn, Bart.; Ewell Grove is the seat of Sir John R. Reid, Bart.; and Ewell Castle, a modern edifice, is the seat of J. Gadesden, Esq. The Hogs-Mill rivulet rises at the intersection of the roads to London and Kingston; runs to the Thames at Kingston; and gives motion, in its course, to several corn and gunpowder mills. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Winchester. Value: £277. Patron: the Rev. Sir G. L. Glyn, Bart. The church was built in 1848, at a cost of £5,600; and is in the decorated English style. The tower of the old church serves now as a cemetery-chapel, and is an edifice of flint and stone. The new church has monuments of Sir Richard Bulkeley, Lord Mayor Sir William Lewen, and Lord Mayor Sir Richard Glyn. The vicarage of Kingswood is a separate benefice. An Independent chapel was built in 1864; a mechanics' institution in 1860; and large national schools in 1861. Charities, £172. Bishop Corbett, of Norwich, was a native."

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Ewell.

Surrey Research Tips

Government

Administrative boundaries of the county of Surrey (Surrey History Centre. The centre has a website with a number of useful indexes--titheholders in various parishes, deaths at the county gaol, etc.)

• In 1889 the County of London was created, and the areas of the modern London boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark and Wandsworth were removed from Surrey. The records of these areas are held either by the London Metropolitan Archives or by the local boroughs, but the Surrey History Centre holds pre-1889 Quarter Sessions records for this area.
• Also in 1889, Croydon was made into a county borough exempt from county administration. Croydon became a London borough in 1965, and most Croydon records are held by the Croydon Local Studies Library and Archives.
• In 1965 more of Surrey was lost to London, with the creation of the London boroughs of Kingston, Merton, Richmond, Sutton and an expanded Croydon. For these areas, records are held by the local boroughs (either in their archives or local studies libraries) or the Surrey History Centre. The London Metropolitan Archives may also have some material.
• In 1965 Staines and Sunbury were transferred from Middlesex to Surrey. In 1974 these areas became the new District of Spelthorne. Most records relating to the former Middlesex area are held by the London Metropolitan Archives.
• In February 2020 FindMyPast announced it had added a substantial number of baptisms, marriages and burials to its database for Surrey. FindMyPast is a pay website.

Registration Districts

• Registration Districts in Surrey from their introduction in 1837 to the present. By drilling down through the links you can follow any parish through the registration districts to which it was attached.

GENUKI provisions

The website GENUKI provides a very comprehensive list of reference sources for the County of Surrey. It includes:

• Archives and Libraries
• Church record availability for both Surrey and the former Surrey part of Greater London
• 19th century descriptions of the ecclesiastical parishes
• Lists of cemeteries
• Local family history societies
• A list of historic maps online

History

• The Victoria History of the County of Surrey is a series of three volumes available online through British History Online. The volumes were written over the past hundred or so years by a number of authors and cover various sections of Surrey. A list of the volumes and what each contains can be found under the source Victoria History of the County of Surrey. Both volumes 3 and 4 contain areas which are part of Greater London and parts of modern Surrey.

Maps

• The National Library of Scotland has a website which provides maps taken from the Ordnance Survey England & Wales One-Inch to the Mile series of 1892-1908 as well as equivalent maps for Scotland itself. The immediate presentation is a "help" screen and a place selection screen prompting the entry of a location down to town, village or parish level. These screens can be removed by a click of the "X". The map is very clear and shows parish and county boundaries and many large buildings and estates that existed at the turn of the 20th century. Magnification can be adjusted and an "overlay feature" allows inspection of the area today along with that of 1900. The specific map from the series can be viewed as a whole ("View this map") and this allows the inspection of the map legend (found in the left hand bottom corner. Becoming familiar with the various facilities of these maps is well worth the trouble.
• Victoria County History chapter on Ewell