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- source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
- source: Family History Library Catalog
- the text below is based on an article in Wikipedia
Peldon is a village and parish in the Colchester Borough of Essex, England. Other nearby parishes include Little Wigborough and Langenhoe. The parish church is dedicated to St Mary the Virgin and is a grade I listed building. The population of the parish as of the 2011 census was 559.
History
During the Iron Age and Roman periods the marshes around Peldon were home to a thriving salt-production industry, and red hills created by this process can be found around the village. Peldon was originally around 2,200 acres of land, equating to approximately 8.9 square kilometres. This land was established by William the Conqueror in 1086 and was later passed on to Sir Thomas Darcy by King Henry VIII. The land was later owned by various local families.
The strongest earthquake to ever strike the UK occurred on 22 April 1884. It measured to a 5.1 magnitude on the Richter scale and rendered much of the area around and including Peldon badly damaged. In total, it damaged around 1250 buildings including churches, houses and cottages.[7] It was reported at the time that every single building in Peldon was damaged in some way, including the local church, causing heavy financial ramifications for the local area. The Peldon Rose, the village's 15th century inn, rumoured to have been connected by a smugglers tunnel to nearby Ray Island still exhibits earthquake damage.
Peldon was also affected by World War One. On September the 24th 1916, German Zeppelin L33 was damaged during a bombing attack on London, and later crashed at New Hall Farm, Little Wigborough, only twenty yards from a nearby house.
The occupants of the house, the Lewis family, ran for their lives as the airship hit the ground. The crew ran from the craft and shortly after it exploded. The crew of the aircraft thought that landing in the sea would be far too dangerous, prompting the decision for them to travel further inland.
In the 1870s, Peldon's parish church was described as: "The church stands on an eminence, with commanding view; is later English, with a tower; and was restored in 1859, and then found to include remains of an early Norman church."
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 Peldon'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 #31 on the map.
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