Place:Great Gaddesden, Hertfordshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Great Gaddesden is a village and civil parish in the Dacorum District of Hertfordshire, England. It is located in the Chiltern Hills, north of Hemel Hempstead. The parish has borders with the parishes of Flamstead, Hemel Hempstead, Nettleden and Little Gaddesden and also to Studham in Bedfordshire.

The Church of St. John the Baptist was probably the site of a pre-Christian sanctuary. The church shows features of every period since the 12th century. Part of the chancel with Roman bricks dates back to the early 12th century. The old church was extended by the south aisle in the 13th century and the north aisle in the 14th century, the west tower was built in the 15th century and the north chapel in the 18th.

Gaddesden Place, positioned east of the small village, was built from 1768 to 1773 for the Halsey family. It is surrounded by a huge park. In 1905 a fire destroyed the interior of the main house.

The River Gade has its name from Gaddesden. Its clear water is used for watercress beds along the river and at Water End south of Great Gaddesden village is an old corn mill powered by the stream. The bridge over the river at Water End has a medieval appearance but was built in the 19th century.

Research Tips

• Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, Register Office Block CHR002, County Hall, Hertford SG13 8EJ. Indexes and Catalog
• Hertfordshire Family History Society
• Ordnance Survey map of Hertfordshire 1900 provided by A Vision of Britain through Time
• Ordnance Survey map of Hertfordshire 1944 provided by A Vision of Britain through Time
• GENUKI outlines information for genealogists for the county. It is also a doorway to pages covering individual parishes.
• Joiner's Marriage Index is available for Hertfordshire on GENUKI. Individual parishes are covered separately.
• Wikimedia Commons has a variety of maps of Hertfordshire, and parts of Hertfordshire, past and present.
• 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.
• The FamilySearch Wiki 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).
• The hundred of Dacorum: Introduction as provided by British History Online in the Victoria County History of Hertfordshire, volume 2, pp 141-142
• The parish of Great Gaddesden ibid, volume 2, pp 201-207