Place:Bromham, Bedfordshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Bromham is a village and civil parish in Bedfordshire, England, west of the town of Bedford. It is within commuting distance to London via Bedford railway station. The village had apopulation 4,957 according to the 2011 census.

The parish is for the greater part enclosed in a bend in the Great Ouse, and it touches the parishes of Oakley, Biddenham, Kempston, Stagsden, Stevington and at its western point, Turvey.

It has a number of notable features including a flour watermill (Bromham Mill, now open to the public) but referred to in the Domesday Book of 1086, a church, St Owen's, and a medieval bridge over the River Great Ouse that, until 1986, carried the main A428 road over the river on 26 arches. Fortunately for the bridge, and for the rest of the village, a bypass now conveys the A428 around the village.

History

The land formed part of the Barony of Bedford held by the Beauchamps. After the Battle of Evesham of 1265, in which John de Beauchamp (possibly John de Beauchamp (5) in Werelate) fell fighting on the side of the barons, the manor was held for a time by Prince Edward, but afterward divided among the Beauchamp female heirs. Bromham afterward passed successively into the hands of the Mowbrays, the Latimers, the Nevilles, the Passelowes, the Wildes and the Dyves (final member: Lewis Dyve (1599-1669)). Early in the 18th century, the manor was bought by Sir Thomas Trevor (1658-1730), who was afterward created Lord Trevor, and whose mother was a daughter of John Hampden (1595-1643), the politician and patriot. Three of his sons succeeded to the title. One of them – the third Lord Trevor – married the daughter of Sir Richard Steele's (Dick Steele) (1672-1729); and another – the fourth Lord Trevor – inherited the Great Hampden Estate in Buckinghamhshire, through his grandmother, and was created Viscount Hampden (1706-1783). The Trevors became connected through marriage with the Rice family (the Dynevor Rices) and, at the death of the late Miss Rice Trevor, the estate passed to the Wingfields.

Research Tips

• The website British History Online provides three chapters of the Victoria County History Series on Bedfordshire. The first covers the religious houses of the county; the second and third provides articles on the parishes of the county. The parishes are arranged within their "hundreds".
• GENUKI main page for Bedfordshire which provides information on various topics covering the whole of the county, and also a link to a list of parishes. Under each parish there is a list of the settlements within it and brief description of each. This is a list of pre-1834 ancient or ecclesiastical parishes but there are suggestions as to how to find parishes set up since then. GENUKI provides references to other organizations who hold genealogical information for the local area. There is no guarantee that the website has been kept up to date and therefore the reader should check additional sources if possible.
• Bedfordshire family history societies are listed in GENUKI.
• The FamilyTree Wiki has a series of pages similar to those provided by GENUKI which may have been prepared at a later date and from more recent data. The wiki has a link to English Jurisdictions 1851. There is a list of all the parishes in existence at that date with maps indicating their boundaries. The website is very useful for finding the ecclesiastical individual parishes within large cities and towns.
• A Vision of Britain through Time, Bedfordshire, section "Units and Statistics" leads to analyses of population and organization of the county from about 1800 through 1974. There are pages available for all civil parishes, municipal boroughs and other administrative divisions. Descriptions provided are usually based on a gazetteer of 1870-72 which often provides brief notes on the economic basis of the settlement and significant occurences through its history.
• These two maps indicate the boundaries between parishes, etc., but for a more detailed view of a specific area try a map from this selection. The oldest series are very clear at the third magnification offered. Comparing the map details with the GENUKI details for the same area is well worthwhile.

• Map of Bedfordshire illustrating urban and rural districts in 1900 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time. Parish boundaries and settlements within parishes are shown.
• Map of Bedfordshire urban and rural districts in 1944 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time. Parish boundaries and settlements within parishes are shown. This is not a repeat of the first map. There were some changes in urban and rural district structure in the 1930s.

• Wikimedia Commons map of the post-1974 districts of Bedfordshire. The numbers will be linked to the districts on the WeRelate district pages.
• A map of the ancient divisions named "hundreds" is provided on each of the pages for the hundreds in Bedfordshire.