Place:Monkton Deverill, Wiltshire, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Monkton Deverill (anciently known as East Monkton) is a village and former civil parish in Wiltshire, England, about five miles south of Warminster and four miles northeast of Mere. It stands on the River Wylye and forms part of a group of villages known as the "Upper Deverills".

Before the Dissolution of the Monasteries (circa 1535), Monkton Deverill was a manor of Glastonbury Abbey. In the Middle Ages, its church was a chapel of the church at Longbridge Deverill, also a Glastonbury manor.

After the Dissolution, the manor was sold by the Crown to John Thynne (1515-1580) together with Longbridge Deverill and thereafter descended in his family, who much later became Marquesses of Bath. The Thynnes have preserved many of Glastonbury Abbey's records at Longleat House up to the present day.

Monkton Deverill was anciently a chapelry of Longbridge Deverill, but was transferred ecclesiastically to Kingston Deverill in 1892. Since 1934, Monkton Deverill has been part of Kingston Deverill parish.

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

"DEVERILL-MONCKTON, a parish in Mere [registration] district, Wilts; on the Deverill rivulet, 4¼ miles NE of Mere, and 5¾ SW of Heytesbury [railway] station. Post town: Deverill-Kingston [Kingston Deverill], under Warminster. Acres: 1, 735. Real property, with Deverill-Kingston: £3,875. Population: 180. Houses: 42. The property is divided among a few. A monastery, subordinate to Bee abbey, was founded here before 1086. The living is a [perpetual] curacy, annexed to the vicarage of Deverill-Longbridge, in the diocese of Salisbury. The church is good. White, ejected by Cromwell, and afterwards a physician, was incumbent."

Research Tips

• From this Ancestry page you can browse the Wiltshire parishes which have parish register transcripts online, quite often from very early dates. However, reading the early ones requires skill and patience. Transcriptions should also be in FamilySearch.
• A further collection of online source references will be found on the county page for Wiltshire.