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- source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
- source: Family History Library Catalog
- the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia
Wormingford is a village and parish in Essex, England located on the south bank of the River Stour, 6 miles (9.7 km) northwest of Colchester and 8 miles (13 km) southeast of Sudbury in Suffolk. The population as of the UK census of 2011 was 454.
The ancient parish covered 2,322 acres (929 hectares). The Stour forms the northern boundary, and the eastern, southern, and western ones follow mainly field boundaries, but sometimes cut through fields. Detached fields totalling 15 acres (61,000 m2) in the neighbouring parish of Little Horkesley, were transferred to that parish in 1889.
The main road from Colchester to Bures St. Mary and Sudbury (B1508) runs from southeast to northwest across the parish. Minor roads connected the parish with Assington, Suffolk across Wormingford bridge, with Fordham, and with Little Horkesley and Nayland, Suffolk. Other minor roads and tracks and a network of footpaths link the scattered farms and houses.
The ford from which the parish takes its name (originally Withermund's ford) was probably that in the River Stour by the watermill, at the bottom of Church Road, where there is a sand bank in the middle of the river. The Church Road ford was replaced before 1802 by a bridge, called a horse-bridge in 1812. About 1821 Messrs. Jones, who leased the river tolls, built a new bridge, apparently a narrow wooden footbridge. It collapsed in the winter of 1895-6 and was replaced by an iron bridge in 1898.
The artist John Constable of East Bergholt (1776–1837), had Wormingford associations, his relatives farming at Wormingford Hall and Gernons. John Nash R.A., who lived at Bottengoms, painted in and around the village from 1929 until 1977.
Research tips
- Essex Record Office handles Essex archives within the county. The address is Wharf Road, Chelmsford, Essex CM2 6YT.
- The Essex Society for Family History covers topics of genealogical interest throughout the present County of Essex (i.e. excluding the western area now in Greater London). Subscription necessary.
- GENUKI provides a list of towns and parishes leading to pages for individual parishes with useful local information for genealogists and family historians.
- Wikimedia Commons has a set of maps of the old hundreds of Essex. These do not show the individual parishes within the hundreds.
- For very detailed investigation Wikimedia Commons also has a series of 176 part maps of the Ordnance Survey 1st series 1:10560, Map of Essex
- FamilySearch 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).
- 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.
- British History Online has transcribed eight volumes of the Victoria County History project for Essex. Seven of these cover the history of parts of the county in great detail, although the project is incomplete for Essex as a whole. Ownership of land through the centuries can often be traced here. The volumes of note are as follows:
- Volume 4, Ongar Hundred, including Chipping and High Ongar, Chigwell, Stondon Massey and Theydon Bois (26 parishes in all).
- Volume 5, Becontree Hundred outside Greater London. A thematic account of the growth of metropolitan Essex since 1850. Also contains topographical accounts of Barking, Ilford, Dagenham and other areas of Essex now within Greater London.
- Volume 6, parishes of Becontree Hundred now within the London boroughs of Newham, Waltham Forest and Redbridge. These include West and East Ham, Walthamstow and Wanstead.
- Volume 7, Covers the ancient parishes, formerly within the Liberty of Havering-atte-Bower and now within the London borough of Havering, and those in Chafford hundred in western Essex now bordering London. It includes accounts of Hornchurch, Romford, Havering.
- Volume 8, accounts of the parishes of Chafford and Harlow Hundreds, including Brentwood, Harlow and Thurrock.
- Volume 9, the Borough of Colchester, describes the life of the oldest and for long the largest town in Essex from the Iron Age to 1990.
- Volume 10, Lexden Hundred (part), includes Dedham, Earls Colne and Wivenhoe and other parishes to the north and west of Colchester.
- As of June 2019 Ancestry (Worldwide subscription required) includes Essex, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812, these early records are from parish registers of baptisms and burials during the years 1538–1812, and marriages during the years 1538-1754. These are in addition to their previous holdings:
- Essex, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1918: 3,937,941 records
- Essex, England, Church of England Marriages, 1754-1935: 1,968,439 records
- Essex, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-1994: 730,118 records
- A map illustrating Wormingford's relationship to its surrounding parishes may be found on the page describing Lexden and Winstree Rural District of which it was part between 1894 and 1974. It is marked as #40 on the map.
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