- source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
- source: Family History Library Catalog
Bedfordshire Record Office's Guide to Bedfordshire Parishes describes Leighton Buzzard thus:
- "Ancient Parish;
- included the Chapelry and Hamlet of Billington until the creation of separate Billington Ecclesiastical Parish in 1826 and Civil Parish in 1866;
- included the Hamlet of Heath and Reach until the creation of separate Heath and Reach Ecclesiastical Parish in 1826 and Civil Parish in 1866;
- included the Hamlet and Chapelry of Eggington until creation of separate Eggington Ecclesiastical Parish in 1810 and Civil Parish in 1866;
- included Chapelry of Stanbridge until creation of separate Stanbridge Ecclesiastical Parish in 1735 and Civil Parish in 1866;
- Eggington is a village and civil parish in Bedfordshire. Prior to 1866 it was a hamlet and chapelry within the parish of Leighton Buzzard.
- part of the Civil Parish of Heath and Reach was transferred to Leighton Buzzard in 1934;
- Civil Parish of Leighton Buzzard abolished in 1965 and combined with Linslade to create the Civil Parish of Leighton-Linslade; includes Grovebury."
- the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia
Leighton Buzzard is a town in Bedfordshire, England near the Chiltern Hills and lying between Luton and Milton Keynes.
For local government purposes, the town is now part of the Central Bedfordshire District and is administered jointly with Linslade as the civil parish of Leighton-Linslade.
Leighton Buzzard is famous for the Grand Union Canal, the London to Birmingham waterway, the first section of which was opened there in 1814. More recently, Leighton Buzzard station was the location for part of the film Robbery, which is based on the so-called "Great Train Robbery" of 1963, while the actual robbery took place just outside the town, at Bridego bridge in Ledburn near Mentmore. In the Domesday Book of 1086, Leighton Buzzard and Linslade were both called "Leestone".
Research Tips
- The website British History Online provides three chapters of the Victoria County History Series on Bedfordshire. The first covers the religious houses of the county; the second and third provides articles on the parishes of the county. The parishes are arranged within their "hundreds".
- GENUKI main page for Bedfordshire which provides information on various topics covering the whole of the county, and also a link to a list of parishes. Under each parish there is a list of the settlements within it and brief description of each. This is a list of pre-1834 ancient or ecclesiastical parishes but there are suggestions as to how to find parishes set up since then. GENUKI provides references to other organizations who hold genealogical information for the local area. There is no guarantee that the website has been kept up to date and therefore the reader should check additional sources if possible.
- Bedfordshire family history societies are listed in GENUKI.
- The FamilyTree Wiki has a series of pages similar to those provided by GENUKI which may have been prepared at a later date and from more recent data. The wiki has a link to English Jurisdictions 1851. There is a list of all the parishes in existence at that date with maps indicating their boundaries. The website is very useful for finding the ecclesiastical individual parishes within large cities and towns.
- A Vision of Britain through Time, Bedfordshire, section "Units and Statistics" leads to analyses of population and organization of the county from about 1800 through 1974. There are pages available for all civil parishes, municipal boroughs and other administrative divisions. Descriptions provided are usually based on a gazetteer of 1870-72 which often provides brief notes on the economic basis of the settlement and significant occurences through its history.
- These two maps indicate the boundaries between parishes, etc., but for a more detailed view of a specific area try a map from this selection. The oldest series are very clear at the third magnification offered. Comparing the map details with the GENUKI details for the same area is well worthwhile.
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