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- source: Family History Library Catalog
Quotation from White's Directory of Essex of 1848 as provided online by History House: Essex Places:A-Z
HORKESLEY, (GREAT) a pleasant, scattered village, on the south side of the vale of the river Stour, opposite Nayland on the Suffolk side of the river, where there is a good bridge, up to which the Stour is navigable for small craft. Horkesley Green and Causeway, and the principal part of the village, are in the higher part of the vale, from 1 to 3 miles South of Nayland, and from 4 to 5 miles North of Colchester. The parish contains 730 inhabitants, and about 3000 acres of land, which was anciently part of the parish and manor of Nayland, or Neyland, and as such it was granted, in 1256, to John de Burgh, who had free warren here. It afterwards passed to the Neyland, Scrope, Shelley, Bayning, Freeman, and other families. The manor has recently been purchased by Jas. Cuddon, Esq., of Norwich, but the soil belongs to Earl de Grey, Lord Ashburton, Sir J. R. Rowley, G. & W. S. Sadler, J. L. and R. Green, Capt. Kelso, W. Corder, and several other proprietors, chiefly copyholders. Brewood Hall farm belongs to Earl de Grey; and Red Park is the seat of Capt. E. J. F. Kelso. Near Woodhouse, is a trench and other remains of an ancient encampment, and some antiquaries are of opinion that it is the site of the British Oppidum, described by Julius Caesar.
The Church (All Saints) has a leaded nave and south aisle, a tiled chancel, and a handsome tower, containing six bells. The rectory, valued in K. B. at £15, and in 1831 at £750, is in the gift of Earl de Grey, and incumbency of the Rev. D. F. Markham, M.A., who has a handsome residence, with woody pleasure grounds. The tithes were commuted in 1839, for £1005.17s.6d. per annum. In the parish is an old Quakers’ Burial Ground, of 36 perches, now a plantation. National and Infant Schools are supported by the rector and other contributors. A small ancient building, on the west side of the Causeway, is supposed to be the remains of Our Lady’s Chapel, founded by John Falcon; and in the south part of the parish is a small chapel of ease, erected about 1837, by J. L. Green, Esq.
The poor have £2.10. yearly from Love’s Charity, (See Aldham) and also £30 a year as the rent of a farm of 30A. at Elmsted, left in 1509, by John Guyon. A farm in the parish belongs to the vicarage of St. Peter’s, Colchester.
There is also a description of the modern parish in Wikipedia.
Research tips
- Essex Record Office handles Essex archives within the county. The address is Wharf Road, Chelmsford, Essex CM2 6YT.
- The Essex Society for Family History covers topics of genealogical interest throughout the present County of Essex (i.e. excluding the western area now in Greater London). Subscription necessary.
- GENUKI provides a list of towns and parishes leading to pages for individual parishes with useful local information for genealogists and family historians.
- Wikimedia Commons has a set of maps of the old hundreds of Essex. These do not show the individual parishes within the hundreds.
- For very detailed investigation Wikimedia Commons also has a series of 176 part maps of the Ordnance Survey 1st series 1:10560, Map of Essex
- FamilySearch lists its collections of church records and vital records along with those provided by other organizations, both commercial and voluntary.
- The commercial website FindMyPast also has a collection of wills and newspaper transcriptions, as well as the "1939 Register" (an equivalent to the census gathered at the beginning of World War 2).
- A Vision of Britain through Time is a website produced by the Department of Geography of the University of Portsmouth. It outlines all parishes as they were in the 19th century.
- British History Online has transcribed eight volumes of the Victoria County History project for Essex. Seven of these cover the history of parts of the county in great detail, although the project is incomplete for Essex as a whole. Ownership of land through the centuries can often be traced here. The volumes of note are as follows:
- Volume 4, Ongar Hundred, including Chipping and High Ongar, Chigwell, Stondon Massey and Theydon Bois (26 parishes in all).
- Volume 5, Becontree Hundred outside Greater London. A thematic account of the growth of metropolitan Essex since 1850. Also contains topographical accounts of Barking, Ilford, Dagenham and other areas of Essex now within Greater London.
- Volume 6, parishes of Becontree Hundred now within the London boroughs of Newham, Waltham Forest and Redbridge. These include West and East Ham, Walthamstow and Wanstead.
- Volume 7, Covers the ancient parishes, formerly within the Liberty of Havering-atte-Bower and now within the London borough of Havering, and those in Chafford hundred in western Essex now bordering London. It includes accounts of Hornchurch, Romford, Havering.
- Volume 8, accounts of the parishes of Chafford and Harlow Hundreds, including Brentwood, Harlow and Thurrock.
- Volume 9, the Borough of Colchester, describes the life of the oldest and for long the largest town in Essex from the Iron Age to 1990.
- Volume 10, Lexden Hundred (part), includes Dedham, Earls Colne and Wivenhoe and other parishes to the north and west of Colchester.
- As of June 2019 Ancestry (Worldwide subscription required) includes Essex, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812, these early records are from parish registers of baptisms and burials during the years 1538–1812, and marriages during the years 1538-1754. These are in addition to their previous holdings:
- Essex, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1918: 3,937,941 records
- Essex, England, Church of England Marriages, 1754-1935: 1,968,439 records
- Essex, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-1994: 730,118 records
- A map illustrating Great Horkesley's relationship to its surrounding parishes may be found on the page describing Lexden and Winstree Rural District of which it was part between 1894 and 1974. It is marked as #15 on the map.
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