Place:Thornham Parva, Suffolk, England

Watchers
NameThornham Parva
Alt namesThornham-Parvasource: Family History Library Catalog
Little Thornhamsource: anglicized
TypeParish
Coordinates52.313°N 1.091°E
Located inSuffolk, England
Also located inEast Suffolk, England     (1888 - 1974)
See alsoHartismere Hundred, Suffolk, Englandhundred in which it was located
Hartismere Rural, Suffolk, Englandrural district 1894-1974
Mid Suffolk District, Suffolk, Englanddistrict municipality in which it has been a part since 1974


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

Thornham Parva is a village and civil parish in the Mid Suffolk District of Suffolk in eastern England. It is located to the north of sister village Thornham Magna and around five miles south of Diss. In 2005 its population was estimated to be 50 persons. By the time of the 2011 Census populations of less than 100 were not maintained separately and this village was combined with the population of Thornham Magna to make 210 persons.

St Mary's Church

The small, thatched St Mary's Church is a Grade I listed building. It has early 14th-century wall paintings: on the south wall, the early years of Christ; and on the north wall, the martyrdom of St. Edmund. There is a circular window in the west wall of the nave that is said to be late Anglo-Saxon as well as the famous retable (see below). Architect Basil Spence died in 1976 at his home at Yaxley, Suffolk and was buried at Thornham Parva.

Wikipedia has separate articles on St Mary's Church, Thornham Parva and also on the Thornham Parva Retable.

Research tips

  • A map of Suffolk from 1900 provided online by A Vision of Britain Through Time (University of Portsmouth Department of Geography) can be enlarged to view individual parishes. Careful inspection will usually lead to the discovery of smaller hamlets founded before 1900. The rural districts (marked with their names printed in blue) are those in existence in 1900, not those introduced in 1934. The more ancient hundreds are marked in red. Most (but not all) parish names are underlined in red.

Suffolk Information

  • Suffolk Family History Society A community of people who are interested in the local and family history pertaining to Suffolk.
  • Suffolk Archives (Record Office) ( e-mail archives@suffolk.gov.uk) - The Suffolk Archive has branches in Ipswich (at The Hold, 131 Fore Street, Ipswich, IP4 1LR), Bury St. Edmunds (at 77 Raingate Street, Bury St Edmunds, IP33 2AR) and Lowestoft (at Lowestoft Library, Clapham Road South, Lowestoft, NR32 1DR). Includes: a good-looking website, research services and publications.
  • Suffolk Churches This is an excellent guide to most of the Suffolk Churches with lots of pictures and descriptions of the architecture and history. It includes many chapels. If you have trouble visiting Suffolk to see where your ancestor were baptised, married and buried, or even those who want to just add to their knowledge, this is the site for you.

For those whose families may have wandered over the county borders:

British Government Information

  • The National Archives or "TNA" - More than 850,000 Probate Wills from 1610-1858 (PCC wills dating back to 1670 have been completed). Free access to indexes but copy of a will costs £10.00. (Ancestry has an index to wills published after 1858.) Access also available to the Domesday Book, World War One Diaries and various other information. Their catalogue called Discovery holds more than 32 million descriptions of records held by The National Archives and more than 2,500 archives across the country including County Record Offices. Over 9 million records are available for download.
  • The British Library - This vast collection contains millions of bibliographic records, British newspapers, many now digitised and searchable on-line and much more.
  • Commonwealth War Graves Commission - The database lists the 1.7 million men and women of the Commonwealth forces who died during the two world wars and the 23,000 cemeteries, memorials and other locations world-wide where they are commemorated. The register can also be searched for details of the 67,000 Commonwealth civilians who died as a result of enemy action in the Second World War.
  • General Register Office - provides official copies of birth marriage & death certificates for England & Wales.
  • FreeBMD - provides Civil Registration index information for England and Wales. The transcribing of the records, by volunteers, is ongoing and contains well over 279 million records at August 2020. Records are complete from 1837 to 1983. Later records are not complete.
  • FreeCEN - provides a "free-to-view" online searchable database of the UK census returns from 1841 to 1891. The transcribing of the records, by volunteers, is ongoing and contains well over 39 million records at August 2020. At that time Suffolk records appeared to be only for the 1891 census and a few for the 1871 census.
  • FreeREG - provides baptism, marriage, and burial records, which have been transcribed, by volunteers, from parish and non-conformist church registers in the UK. There are over 49 million entries with just under 300,000 records for Suffolk at August 2020.
  • Ministry of Defence (url not found)- provides information for obtaining details about service records post 1920
  • Royal Air Force Museum (url not found) - for information on the archive and library research material available.
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Thornham Parva. 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.