Place:West Dean, Wiltshire, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

West Dean is a village and civil parish in southeast Wiltshire, England; the Wiltshire/Hampshire border runs through the eastern part of the village. The village is on the River Dun, about east of Salisbury and the same distance northwest of Romsey.

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

"DEAN (West), a parish in the registration districts of Stockbridge and Alderbury, and county of Wilts; on the Salisbury canal and the Salisbury railway, at Dean [railway] station and the boundary with Hants, 7¼ miles NW of Romsey. It includes East Grimstead chapelry; and has a post office under Romsey. Acres: 4,382. Real property: £3,819. Population: 446. Houses: 97. The property is divided among a few. West Dean House, now pulled down, was a seat of the Evelyns, and of the first Duke of Kingston. A Roman pavement was found in the parish in 1741. The living is a rectory, united with the [perpetual] curacy of East Grimstead, in the diocese of Salisbury. Value: not reported. Patron: the Rev. H. Glossop. The old church had monuments of the Evelyns and the Pierreponts; and the new church was built in 1866.

Research Tips

The Victoria County History of Hampshire provided by British History Online, discusses the transfer of a portion of West Dean parish from Hampshire to Wiltshire in 1883.

• From this Ancestry page you can browse the Wiltshire parishes which have parish register transcripts online, quite often from very early dates. However, reading the early ones requires skill and patience. Transcriptions should also be in FamilySearch.
• A further collection of online source references will be found on the county page for Wiltshire.