Place:Bacton, Herefordshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Bacton is a small village in the rural area of southwest Herefordshire, England, 14 miles (23 km) from Hereford.

The parish church of St Faith's dates from 13th century and has a relatively long entry in Pevsner's survey of the county's buildings.

Inside the church is Blanche Parry's memorial; Parry was Chief Gentlewoman of Queen Elizabeth's most honourable Privy Chamber and Keeper of Her Majesty’s jewels. It is possible that an altar cloth belonging to the parish church was made from a dress once worn by Queen Elizabeth I of England and given to Blanche Parry. The material of the cloth appears to form part of the clothing of the Queen in the early 17th-century "Rainbow Portrait", attributed to Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger.

One mile to the north are the earthwork remains of a small motte and bailey castle known as Newcourt Tump. The castle seems to have fallen out of use by the 14th century.

Research Tips

• Herefordshire Archive and Records Centre, Fir Tree Lane, Rotherwas, Hereford HR2 6LA is where paper and microfilm copies of all records for Herefordshire are stored. The Archives Centre has a website where the index to the archives (and also the wills catalog) can be searched. One item in the catalog is List of all Herefordshire parish register and bishops transcripts holdings which is a PDF file with information provided in an old version of Excel.

Online sources which may also be helpful:

• GENUKI gives pointers to other archive sources as well as providing some details on each parish in the county. 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. Do respect the copyright on this material.
• The FamilySearch Wiki for Herefordshire provides a similar but not identical series of webpages to that provided by GENUKI
• A Vision of Britain through Time has a group of pages of statistical facts for almost every parish in the county
• Unfortunately, only one volume on Herefordshire has been published in the Victoria County History series. British History Online have produced a series of Ordnance Survey first edition maps for the county which may be helpful for mid-nineteenth century inquiries
• Ancestry.co.uk lists its collections of Herefordshire genealogical material.
• FindMyPast collections of historical records can be searched for Herefordshire. They have collections of parish records for the pre-1837 period.