Place:Thorley, Isle of Wight, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

Thorley is a village on the Isle of Wight, 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) from Yarmouth in the northwest of the island. Thorley was a separate civil parish until 1933 when it was absorbed into Yarmouth.

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Thorley from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"THORLEY, a parish in the Isle of Wight; 1 mile SE of Yarmouth. Post town: Yarmouth, Isle of Wight. Acres: 1,574. Real property: £2,061. Population: 143. Houses: 25. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Winchester. Value: £100. Patrons: Trustees. The church is not good."

Research Tips

• Victoria County History of Hampshire, volume 5, chapter on Thorley.
• Victoria County History of Hampshire has an outline map of the parishes of West Medina.
• The Isle of Wight Family History Society has a website with a lot of information.
• GENUKI has a list of archive holders in Hampshire including the Hampshire Record Office, various museums in Portsmouth and Southhampton, the Isle of Wight Record Office and Archives.
• The Hampshire Online Parish Clerk project has a large collection of transcriptions from Parish Registers across Hampshire.
• A listing of all the Registration Districts in England and Wales since their introduction in 1837 together with tables listing the parishes that were part of each district and the time period covered, along with detailed notes on changes of parish name, mergers, etc. Do respect the copyright on this material.
• The three-storey City Museum in Winchester covers the Iron Age and Roman periods, the Middle Ages, and the Victorian period.
• Volumes in The Victoria County History Series are available for Hampshire through British History Online. There are three volumes and the county is covered by parishes within the old divisions of "hundreds".

A collection of maps on the A Vision of Britain through Time website illustrating the English county of Hampshire over the period 1832-1932 (the last two are expandible):

• The Hundreds of Hampshire, a map from HMSO Boundary Commissioners, dated 1832
• Hampshire showing parishes in their Rural Districts as of 1900, a map from the Ordnance Survey
• Hampshire showing parishes in their Rural Districts after the alterations of 1932, a map from the Ordnance Survey

• A group of maps of the post-1974 municipal districts or boroughs of Hampshire on Wikipedia Commons