Place:Whitchurch, Somerset, England

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Whitchurch (#14 on map) was a civil parish and a village in north Somerset, England. The village in its present location dates from about the 12th century, when the centre of population of an older village named Filton, Filwood or Felton*, west of the present village, moved to the present site. The parish was still sometimes known as Felton as late as the 19th century. The parish became a civil parish in 1866. In 1930 347 acres in the northern parts of the civil parish were transferred to Bristol. From then Whitchurch was (1) a suburb of Bristol and (2) a parish outside the city in Somerset. The suburb was bounded by the communities of Hartcliffe to the west and Hengrove and Knowle to the north. The A37 road, which passes through Whitchurch, links Bristol with Dorchester in Dorset. Within Bristol the A37 is known as Wells Road. It was one of the first dual carriageways to be built in Bristol. Felton is also the name of a still existing hamlet in the parish of Winford about 5 miles to the west. For this reason, within WeRelate, the two hamlets are named Felton in Whitchurch and Felton in Winford.

Governance

Whitchurch was originally a chapelry in the ancient parish of Long Ashton in the Keynsham Hundred, one of the hundreds or early subdivisions of the county of Somerset. From 1894 until 1933 it was part of the Keynsham Rural District. The parish outside the city was transferred to the Bathavon Rural District in 1933 when Keynsham Rural District was abolished. It continued there until 1974.

In 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, all urban and rural districts across England were abolished and counties were reorganized into metropolitan and non-metropolitan districts. In addition, this area of Somerset with the city of Bristol and part of Gloucestershire were declared a new county named Avon. Like other counties, it had non-metropolitan districts covering the more non-urban areas. The area directly south of Bristol and east to the border with Wiltshire was placed in the Wansdyke District, while the section west to the Bristol Channel was placed in the Woodspring District. The county of Avon only lasted until 1996. When it was abolished a slight restructuring of non-metropolitan districts occurred to allow those parts of Avon to return to Somerset and Gloucestershire. Whitchurch outside Bristol is now a civil parish in the unitary authority of Bath and Northeast Somerset. In the 2001 UK census the civil parish had a population of 1,354.

Research Tips

• GENUKI page on Whitchurch
• The Somerset Heritage Centre (incorporating what was formerly the Somerset Record Office and the Somerset Local Studies Library) can be found at its new location at Langford Mead in Taunton. It has an online search facility leading to pages of interest, including maps from the First and Second Ordnance Survey (select "Maps and Postcards" from the list at the left, then enter the parish in the search box).
  The Heritage Centre has an email address: archives@somerset.gov.uk.
• Three maps on the A Vision of Britain through Time website illustrate the changes in political boundaries over the period 1830-1945. All have expanding scales and on the second and third this facility is sufficient that individual parishes can be inspected.

• Somerset Hundreds as drawn in 1832. This map was prepared before The Great Reform Act of that year. Note the polling places and representation of the various parts of the county.
• Somerset in 1900, an Ordnance Survey map showing rural districts, the boundaries of the larger towns, the smaller civil parishes of the time, and some hamlets and villages in each parish
• Somerset in 1943, an Ordnance Survey map showing the rural districts after the changes to their structure in the 1930s

• Maps provided by the National Library of Scotland are also very useful. This map is currently set to an area now in the Sedgmoor District as it existed in the late 19th century, but can be moved to anywhere in the county using a variety of background maps. There is a very good search facility.
• A Vision of Britain through Time has a group of pages of statistical facts for almost every parish in the county
• GENUKI gives pointers to other archive sources as well as providing some details on each parish. The emphasis here is on ecclesiastical parishes (useful before 1837)
• A listing of all the Registration Districts in England and Wales since their introduction in 1837 and tables of the parishes that were part of each district and the time period covered with detailed notes on changes of parish name, mergers, etc. The compiler has gone to a lot of work to provide this material. Respect his copyright.
• The FamilySearch Wiki for Somerset provides a similar but not identical series of webpages to that provided by GENUKI
• English Jurisdictions, a supplementary website to FamilySearch outlining local parish boundaries in the middle on the 19th century. The information provided is especially useful for establishing the relationship of the ecclesiastical parishes in large towns and cathedral cities.
• The Victoria History of the Counties of England – History of the County of Somerset, produced by The Institute of Historical Research at the University of London is a scholarly website with articles tracing the history of individual parishes which are sorted into their hundreds, the early subdivisions of the county. It traces the ownership of estates and manors, describes the local church in detail, and usually provides a map of each parish. The volumes for Somerset are much more recent than those for other counties. It appears to be a work in progress, only covering about half the county so far. A map of the places covered in the series is given in Volume 6, but 3 more volumes have been published since then. If a parish is included there will be a note in its Research Tips.
• The Somerset and Dorset Family History Society
• The Weston super Mare Family History Society
• The Bristol and Avon Family History Society
• A list of all Somerset parishes with online transcripts of parish registers The size of Somerset makes this a huge project. If it does not yield what you are looking for, try getting in touch with the organizer with patience and politeness.
• Somerset Online Parish Clerk project home page
• A collection of West Somerset Parish Register Transcriptions are online courtesy of Martin Southwood