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- source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
- source: Family History Library Catalog
- the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia
Whitfield is an ancient village and civil parish in the English county of Kent. Part of the parish, a large settlement located at the junction of the A2 and A256 roads and some four miles (6.4 km) north of Dover, has become a suburb of the Dover urban area.
The original village (Church Whitfield) can claim ancient roots in that evidence of both Roman and Saxon settlements have been unearthed. The village church, dedicated to St Peter, has two Saxon windows, and the bell is from the 13th century, or earlier. St. Peter's Church is a 10th Century Saxon Church largely rebuilt in Norman times, though the church is first mentioned in 762 AD. It was restored and enlarged in 1894.
There is also an early Congregational Chapel in the village (Chapel Road) dating to 1781 but rebuilt in 1867. Whitfield also had its own windmill for many years, with a bakery beneath. It was built in about 1755 and was owned by generations of the Cadman family. In 1900 the mill was left to decay and was finally demolished in 1916 though the mill house still stands in Napchester Road.
For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Whitfield, Kent.
Whitfield was a civil parish in Dover Rural District from 1894 until 1974 and since 1974 has been part of the non-metropolitan Dover District. Originally it was an ancient parish in the Bewsborough Hundred. It had an estimated population of 4,600 in 2005.
Research Tips
- Kent County Council Archive, Local Studies and Museums Service. James Whatman Way, Maidstone, Kent ME14 1LQ. This incorporates the Centre for Kentish Studies in Maidstone and the East Kent Archives Centre near Dover.
- Canterbury Cathedral Archives see the Archives web pages on the Canterbury Catherdral site.
- For information on the area around the Medway Towns, have a look at Medway Council's CityArk site.
- Ordnance Survey Maps of England and Wales - Revised: Kent illustrates the parish boundaries of Kent when rural districts were still in existence and before Greater London came into being. The map publication year is 1931. An earlier map of 1900 may also be useful. The maps blow up to show all the parishes and many of the small villages and hamlets. Maps in this series are now downloadable for personal use.
- Census records for Kent are available on FamilySearch, Ancestry and FindMyPast. The first site is free; the other two are pay sites but have access to microfilmed images. Steve Archer produced a very useful round-up of the available sources, but this information may not be up to date.
- Registration Districts in Kent for the period 1837 to the present. By drilling down through the links you can follow any parish through the registration districts to which it was attached.
- England, Kent, Parish Registers, 1538-1911 The full database from Kent Archives Office, Maidstone, has been available online from FamilySearch since June 2016.
- Kent had five family history societies (now only four):
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- Volume 2 of the Victoria County History of Kent (published 1926) is available online through the auspices of British History Online. It includes accounts of the early history of Canterbury and Rochester cathedrals, and of several sites now within the conurbation of London.
- Volume 3 of the Victoria County History of Kent (published 1932) This includes the text of, and the index to, the Kent Domesday survey. It has been provided by the Kent Archaeological Society.
- In place of the other volumes of the Victoria County History, British History Online has transcriptions of the numerous volumes of The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent by Edward Hasted (originally published 1797)
- English Jurisdictions 1851, a parish finding aid provided by FamilySearch, is particularly helpful in locating parishes in large ancient towns and cities like Canterbury.
- Kent Probate Records Numerous links provided by Maureen Rawson
- GENUKI lists other possible sources, however, it does not serve Kent so well as it does some other counties.
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