Place:Steeple, Essex, England

Watchers
NameSteeple
Alt namesSteplasource: Domesday Book (1985) p 105
Stansgatesource: hamlet in parish
Stanesgatesource: spelling variation
TypeParish
Coordinates51.683°N 0.8°E
Located inEssex, England
See alsoDengie Hundred, Essex, Englandancient hundred in which it was located
Maldon Rural, Essex, Englandrural district in which it was located 1894-1974
Maldon District, Essex, Englanddistrict municipality of which it has been part since 1974
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog


the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Steeple is a small village on the Dengie peninsula in Essex, England. It is situated just east of Mayland on the southern side of the River Blackwater estuary. A hamlet, within the village of Steeple, on the banks of the River Blackwater, is called Stansgate.

Stansgate Priory was a Cluniac Priory built near to the banks of the River Blackwater in about 1120. It was one of many priories closed by Cardinal Wolsey in 1534, early in the period known as Dissolution of the Monasteries

Since about 1900 the village has been home to several generations of the Benn family, who were created Viscounts Stansgate in 1942. They live in Stansgate House.

The following description from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72 is provided by the website A Vision of Britain Through Time (University of Portsmouth Department of Geography).

STEEPLE, a parish, with [Steeple] village and Stanesgate hamlet, in Maldon [registration] district, Essex; on the Blackwater estuary, 6 miles SE of Maldon [railway] station. It has fairs on Whit-Monday and the Wednesday after Michaelmas. Post town, Southminster, under Maldon. Acres: 3,434; of which 630 are water. Real property: £3,060. Population: 559. Houses: 114. Most of the property belongs to Bartholomew's hospital. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Rochester. Value: £165. Patron: alternately Lord Fitzwalter and T. and F. Hunt, Esqs., and Miss Hunt. The church is plain; and there are an Independent chapel and a national school.

From 1894 until 1974 it was part of the Maldon Rural District. The parish was originally in the Dengie Hundred. According to the UK census of 2011, the population of the parish was 490.

Research tips

Unfortunately there is no Victoria County History volume (see below) for Dengie Hundred.
  • Essex Family History is a website which concentrates on the Dengie Hundred with lists of people found in various parishes.
  • A map illustrating Steeple's relationship to its surrounding parishes may be found on the page describing Maldon Rural District of which it was part between 1894 and 1974. It is marked as #22 on the map.
  • 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
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Steeple, Essex. 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.