Place:Little Missenden, Buckinghamshire, England

Watchers
NameLittle Missenden
Alt namesHyde Heathsource: village in parish
Little Kingshillsource: village in parish
Beamond Endsource: hamlet in parish
Brays Greensource: hamlet in parish
Mop Endsource: hamlet in parish
Spurlands Endsource: hamlet in parish
Missedenesource: Domesday Book (1985) p 43
TypeVillage, Civil parish
Coordinates51.667°N 0.65°W
Located inBuckinghamshire, England
See alsoWycombe Rural, Buckinghamshire, Englandrural district of which Little Missenden was a part 1894-1901
Amersham Rural, Buckinghamshire, Englandrural district in which it was located 1894-1974
Chiltern District, Buckinghamshire, Englanddistrict municipality covering the area since 1974


source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog


the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Little Missenden is a village and civil parish on the River Misbourne in Buckinghamshire, England. It is in the Chiltern Hills, about southeast of Great Missenden and west of Amersham. The village lies on the River Misbourne in the Misbourne valley.

The parish includes the villages of Holmer Green, Hyde Heath and Little Kingshill, and the hamlets of Beamond End, Brays Green, Mop End and Spurlands End. The 2011 Census recorded the population of the ward of Little Missenden, which includes Hyde Heath and Little Kingshill, as 2,234, albeit those other two villages in the ward are each larger than Little Missenden itself. The population of the entire parish was estimated as 6,490 in 2017, reflecting the inclusion of the much larger Holmer Green within the parish.

The main LondonAylesbury road used to run through the centre of Little Missenden and past the two pubs – The Red Lion and The Crown. Early in the 19th century a new by-pass road was built to the north and this now forms part of the modern A413 road.

Throughout the 19th century Little Missenden was a part of the High Wycombe (sometimes Chepping Wycombe) Rural Sanitary District and Wycombe Rural District. In 1901 it was transferred to Amersham Rural District Council and in 1974 to the Chiltern District Council.

History

this section is based on a section of an article in Wikipedia

The word "Missenden" is derived from the Old English for "valley where marsh plants grow". In the Domesday Book of 1086 two villages are recorded as Missedene and Little Missenden is clearly identifiable by two hides owned between three landlords. One of these hides belonging to the Count of Mortain (now located around Town Farm) expanded after Domesday to become the manor of Holmer from which the village of Holmer Green developed. Other hamlets which are in the ancient parish of Little Missenden are Beamond End, Mop End, Spurlands End, Little Kingshill, Brays Green and Hyde Heath. Although Little Kingshill was in Little Missenden Parish, it was enumerated with Great Missenden in the 1841 and 1851 censuses.

The main London-Aylesbury road used to run through the centre of Little Missenden and past the two pubs – The Red Lion and The Crown. In the early 20th century, a new by-pass road was built to the north and this now forms part of the modern A413 road.

Research Tips

Maps

  • An outline map of the current civil parishes of Buckinghamshire (post 1974 and omitting Milton Keynes unitary authority) is provided by the Boundaries Commission.
  • Another map which gives no source, appears to have been drawn to show the county in the late 19th century and labels the parishes directly. However, the map does not show towns and villages (unless they are parishes using the same name) and some parishes have been found to be missing from this map.
  • A map provided by the Open University (a British university based in Milton Keynes) gives the locations of the old civil parishes and the new communities that make up Milton Keynes. It can be expanded to read the labels.

Registration Offices

Birth, marriage and death certificates can now be ordered online from Buckinghamshire County Council. The full postal address is Buckinghamshire Register Office, County Hall, Walton Street, Aylesbury, HP20 1YU.

The Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies (County Hall, Walton Street, Aylesbury, HP20 1UU) holds

  • Church of England and Nonconformist churches including registers of baptism, marriage and burial.
  • Around 35,000 wills proved by the Archdeaconry of Buckingham.
  • County and District Councils (lists of councillors, minutes of meetings, etc).
  • Quarter and Petty Session courts.
  • Landed estates of families including the Aubrey-Fletchers, Hampdens, Carringtons and Fremantles.
  • Historic maps including OS, tithe and inclosure maps
  • A wide range of local history books, some for loan.
  • Pamphlets and articles of local history interest.
  • Local newspapers
  • Computers for access to family history resources like Ancestry and FreeBMD.
  • Published material is listed in the Library Catalogue.
  • Catalogues to some of our manuscript material is available through Access to Archives, part of The National Archives (TNA). Their database contains catalogues describing archives held locally in England and Wales and dating from the eighth century to the present day.

In Buckinghamshire, as with other counties in England and Wales, the location of offices where Births, Marriages and Deaths were registered has altered with other changes in local government. A list of the location of Registration Offices since civil registration began in 1837 has been prepared by GENUKI (Genealogy: United Kingdom and Ireland). The table also gives details of when each Registration Office was in existence. In the case of Buckinghamshire, the same registration offices were used for the censuses since 1851. Buckinghamshire now only has a central registration office at County Hall in Aylesbury, but there are facilities for registering births, marriages and deaths in specific libraries around the county.

Nineteenth Century Local Administration

English Jurisdictions is a webpage provided by FamilySearch which analyses every ecclesiastical parish in England at the year 1851. It provides, with the aid of outline maps, the date at which parish records and bishops transcripts begin, non-conformist denominations with a chapel within the parish, the names of the jurisdictions in charge: county, civil registration district, probate court, diocese, rural deanery, poor law union, hundred, church province; and links to FamilySearch historical records, FamilySearch Catalog and the FamilySearch Wiki. Two limitations: only England, and at the year 1851.

During the 19th century two bodies, the Poor Law Union and the Sanitary District, had responsibility for governmental functions at a level immediately above that covered by the civil parish. In 1894 these were replace by Rural and Urban Districts. These were elected bodies, responsible for setting local property assessments and taxes as well as for carrying out their specified duties. Thses districts continued in operation until 1974. Urban districts for larger municipalities were called "Municipal Boroughs" and had additional powers and obligations.

Poor Law Unions, established nationally in 1834, combined parishes together for the purpose of providing relief for the needy who had no family support. This led to the building of '"union poorhouses" or "workhouses" funded by all the parishes in the union. The geographical boundaries established for the individual Poor Law Unions were employed again when Registration Districts were formed three years later. In 1875 Sanitary Districts were formed to provide services such as clean water supply, sewage systems, street cleaning, and the clearance of slum housing. These also tended to follow the same geographical boundaries, although there were local alterations caused by changes in population distribution.

Online Historical References

  • GENUKI for Buckinghamshire provides a lot of material on the county history from a variety of aspects. The maps of the hundreds are reproduced from 19th century publications and show the topology as well as the locations of the various parishes. There is also a schematic map covering the whole county. GENUKI does not contain much information about the 20th century and beyond.
  • Local History Online provides a list of local historical organizations. Each of these societies and organizations has its own website.
  • The FamilySearch Wiki on Buckinghamshire explains the jurisdictions relating to civil affairs, parishes and probate (wills and testaments) for each parish in the county and also outlines when these jurisdictions were in existence. The data does not cover the post-1974 period.


This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Little Missenden. 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.