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Wikipedia has very few articles on the hundreds of Shepway Lathe, but the map on the Shepway Lathe page should at least allow the reader to get an idea of the location of the individual hundreds. The Ordnance Survey maps referenced below are helpful, particularly the one from 1900.
- the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia
A liberty was an English unit originating in the Middle Ages, traditionally defined as an area in which regalian right was revoked and where the land was held by a mesne lord (i.e., an area in which rights reserved to the king had been devolved into private hands). It later became a unit of local government administration.
Liberties were areas of widely variable extent which were independent of the usual system of hundreds and boroughs for a number of different reasons, usually to do with peculiarities of tenure. Because of their tenurial rather than geographical origin, the areas covered by liberties could either be widely scattered across a county or limited to an area smaller than a single parish.
Legislation passed in 1836 ended the temporal jurisdiction of the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Ely in several liberties, and the Liberties Act 1850 permitted the merging of liberties in their counties.
John Marius Wilson, in his Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72, considered Langport Liberty to be a "hundred". It covers the most seaward portion of the Romney Marsh on the southern "point" of Kent.
Parishes
Research tips
- Kent County Council Archive, Local Studies and Museums Service. James Whatman Way, Maidstone, Kent ME14 1LQ. This incorporates the Centre for Kentish Studies in Maidstone and the East Kent Archives Centre near Dover.
- Canterbury Cathedral Archives see the Archives web pages on the Canterbury Catherdral site.
- For information on the area around the Medway Towns, have a look at Medway Council's CityArk site.
- Ordnance Survey Maps of England and Wales - Revised: Kent illustrates the parish boundaries of Kent when rural districts were still in existence and before Greater London came into being. The map publication year is 1931. An earlier map of 1900 may also be useful. The maps blow up to show all the parishes and many of the small villages and hamlets. Maps in this series are now downloadable for personal use.
- Census records for Kent are available on FamilySearch, Ancestry and FindMyPast. The first site is free; the other two are pay sites but have access to microfilmed images. Steve Archer produced a very useful round-up of the available sources, but this information may not be up to date.
- Registration Districts in Kent for the period 1837 to the present. By drilling down through the links you can follow any parish through the registration districts to which it was attached.
- England, Kent, Parish Registers, 1538-1911 The full database from Kent Archives Office, Maidstone, has been available online from FamilySearch since June 2016.
- Kent had five family history societies (now only four):
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- Volume 2 of the Victoria County History of Kent (published 1926) is available online through the auspices of British History Online. It includes accounts of the early history of Canterbury and Rochester cathedrals, and of several sites now within the conurbation of London.
- Volume 3 of the Victoria County History of Kent (published 1932) This includes the text of, and the index to, the Kent Domesday survey. It has been provided by the Kent Archaeological Society.
- In place of the other volumes of the Victoria County History, British History Online has transcriptions of the numerous volumes of The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent by Edward Hasted (originally published 1797)
- English Jurisdictions 1851, a parish finding aid provided by FamilySearch, is particularly helpful in locating parishes in large ancient towns and cities like Canterbury.
- Kent Probate Records Numerous links provided by Maureen Rawson
- GENUKI lists other possible sources, however, it does not serve Kent so well as it does some other counties.
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