Place:Kings Somborne, Hampshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

Kings Somborne is a village and civil parish in the Test Valley district of Hampshire, England. The village lies on the edge of the valley of the River Test.

Kings Somborne was in the Stockbridge Rural District from 1894 until 1932, and in the Romsey and Stockbridge Rural District from 1932 until 1974. Since 1974 the parish has been in the Test Valley District of Hampshire.

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

"KINGS-SOMBOURN, a village, a parish, and a hundred, in Hants. The village stands near the Roman road [mis-transcribed "toad"] to Sarum, and near the Horsebridge station of the Andover and Southampton railway, 3 miles S of Stockbridge; is connected with extensive iron foundries; and has a post office under Winchester.

"The parish contains the tythings of Brook and Up-Sombourn; and is in Stockbridge [registration] district. Acres: 7,425. Real property: £7,860. Population: 1,241. Houses: 258. The property is subdivided. The manor belonged anciently to the Crown, and is still attached to the duchy of Lancaster. A palace of John of Gaunt stood near the church; and ruins of it, overgrown with large ancient yew trees, still exist. The living is a vicarage, united with the [perpetual] curacy of Little Sombourn, in the diocese of Winchester. Value: £696. Patron: Lady Barker Mill. The church is partly transition Norman, partly decorated English; includes a sepulchral recess, with an ancient stone coffin; and has a tower, partly early English, but chiefly wooden. There are two dissenting chapels and a national school."

"The hundred is in Romsey [registration] division; and contains four parishes and part of another. Acres: 21,976. Pop. in 1851: 5,767. Houses: 1,174."

Research Tips

• Victoria County History of Hampshire, volume 4, chapter on Kings Somborne.
• GENUKI has a list of archive holders in Hampshire including the Hampshire Record Office, various museums in Portsmouth and Southhampton, the Isle of Wight Record Office and Archives.
• The Hampshire Online Parish Clerk project has a large collection of transcriptions from Parish Registers across Hampshire.
• A listing of all the Registration Districts in England and Wales since their introduction in 1837 together with tables listing the parishes that were part of each district and the time period covered, along with detailed notes on changes of parish name, mergers, etc. Do respect the copyright on this material.
• The three-storey City Museum in Winchester covers the Iron Age and Roman periods, the Middle Ages, and the Victorian period.
• Volumes in The Victoria County History Series are available for Hampshire through British History Online. There are three volumes and the county is covered by parishes within the old divisions of "hundreds".

A collection of maps on the A Vision of Britain through Time website illustrating the English county of Hampshire over the period 1832-1932 (the last two are expandible):

• The Hundreds of Hampshire, a map from HMSO Boundary Commissioners, dated 1832
• Hampshire showing parishes in their Rural Districts as of 1900, a map from the Ordnance Survey
• Hampshire showing parishes in their Rural Districts after the alterations of 1932, a map from the Ordnance Survey

• A group of maps of the post-1974 municipal districts or boroughs of Hampshire on Wikipedia Commons