Place:Hartlebury, Worcestershire, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Hartlebury is a village and civil parish in Worcestershire, England which is in Wychavon district centred south of Kidderminster. The civil parish registered a population of 2,549 in the 2001 Census.

The railway station is centred 800 metres east of the village centre and the main settlement is green-buffered from surrounding villages save for a locality Waresley which is contiguous with the village centre. The south of the parish includes Crossway Green, which hosts a large motel named after Hartlebury; more scantly populated Lincomb and the north comprise Torton.

end of Wikipedia contribution

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Hartlebury from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"HARTLEBURY, a village and a parish in Droitwich [registration] district, Worcester[shire]. The village stands 1 mile W by N of the junction of the West Midland and Severn Valley railways, 1½ E of the river Severn, and 3¾ S by E of Kidderminster; and has a station at the railway junction, and a post office letter box under Kidderminster. The parish contains also the hamlets of Upper Mitton, Crossway-Green, Norchard, Waresley, Chadwick, Titton, Lincomb, Charlton, Wilden, Torton, and Low Hill. Acres: 5,493. Real property: £14,583. Population in 1851: 2,047; in 1861: 2,115. Houses: 452. The property is subdivided. The manor was given to the Bishops of Worcester by King Buhred. Hartlebury Castle, the seat of the bishops, was built, in the time of Henry III., by Bishop Cantelupe; was seized and destroyed, in 1646, by the parliamentarian force; was rebuilt, of brick, by Bishop Hough; and stands in a park to the W of the village. Ironworks are in Wilden hamlet, near the Worcester and Stafford canal. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Worcester. Value: £1,765. Patron: the Bishop of Worcester. The church was rebuilt in 1836; and is a handsome edifice in the Gothic style, with a tower. There are a recent Independent chapel, a free grammar school, founded in 1400, with endowed income of £467, and other charities with £67."

Hartlebury was originally an ancient parish in the Halfshire Hundred and also in the Oswaldslow Hundred. From 1894 until 1974 it was a parish in the Droitwich Rural District. Since 1974 it has been part of the Wychavon District, first in the county of Hereford and Worcester, and then, since 1998, in Worcestershire again.

There is a sketchmap of the parishes of Droitwich Rural District on the rural district page.

Research tips

• Ordnance Survey Maps of England and Wales - Revised: Worcestershire illustrates the parish boundaries of Worcestershire when rural districts were still in existence and before the West Midlands came into being. The map publication year is 1931. The map blows up to show all the parishes and many of the small villages and hamlets. Maps in this series are now downloadable for personal use.
• British History Online has a large collection of local maps from the Ordnance Survey 1883-1893. These blow up to a size that permits viewing of individual hamlets, farms, collieries, but there is no overlapping of one map to the next, and no overall map to tie the individual ones together.
• British History Online also has three volumes of the Victoria County History of Worcestershire online. Volume 3 (published in 1913) deals with the Halfshire Hundred; Volume 4 (published in 1924) deals with the City of Worcester, as well as parishes in the hundreds of Pershore and Doddingtree. Volume 2 covers religious houses in the county. The remainder of the county is not represented in the British History Online series.
• GENUKI makes a great many suggestions as to other websites with worthwhile information about Worcestershire as well as leading to a collection of 19th century descriptions of each of the ecclesiastical parishes.
• The FamilySearch Wiki provides a similar information service to GENUKI which may be more up-to-date. An index of parishes leads to notes and references for each parish. The auxiliary website English Jurisdictions can also be helpful.
• Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service, The Hive, Sawmill Walk, The Butts, Worcester WR1 3PD (Telephone: 01905 822866, e-mail: archive@worcestershire.gov.uk) The Archives Collections Catalog Summary outlines the contents of the Archives Collection and also notes on what has been transferred to the national online service Access to Archives
• The Birmingham & Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry has a branch in Bromsgrove which deals in Worcestershire family history. There are also branches at Stourbridge and Worcester.
• The Midlands Historical Data project produces searchable facsimile copies of old local history books and directories of interest to genealogists. It specialises in the three counties of Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Staffordshire, working closely with libraries, archives and family history societies in the area. Digital images are made freely available to participating organisations to improve public access. Free search index on its web-site to all its books. In many cases payment will be required to see the extract.
• A Vision of Britain through Time has

1. organization charts of the hierarchies of parishes within hundreds, registration districts and rural and urban districts of the 20th century
2. excerpts from a gazetteer of circa 1870 outlining individual towns and parishes
3. reviews of population through the time period 1800-1960

• Brett Langston's list of Worcestershire Registration Districts and parishes within each registration district from 1837 to the present can indicate where to find details of civil registration entries since the process began in England.
• More local sources can often be found by referring to "What Links Here" in the column on the left.