Place:Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Kings Langley is a historic village and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England, 21 miles (34 km) northwest of central London to the south of the Chiltern Hills and now part of the London commuter belt. The village is divided between two local government districts by the River Gade with the larger western portion in the Dacorum District and smaller part, to the east of the river, in Three Rivers District.

It was once the location of Kings Langley Palace, a royal palace of the Plantagenet kings of England. The 12th century parish church of All Saints houses the tomb of Edmund of Langley (1341–1402), the first Duke of York.

It is 2 miles (3.2 km) south of Hemel Hempstead and 2 miles (3.2 km) north of Watford.

The place-name Langley is first attested here in a Saxon charter of circa 1050, where it appears as Langalega. It is spelt Langelai in the Domesday Book of 1086, and is recorded as Langel' Regis in 1254. The name means 'long wood or clearing'.

Kings Langley parish contained the hamlet and chapelry of Chipperfield which did not become a separate civil parish until 1958 (and is redirected here).

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Kings Langley.

Chipperfield

Chipperfield is a village and civil parish in the Dacorum District of Hertfordshire, England, about 5 miles southwest of Hemel Hempstead and 5 miles north of Watford. The rural parish includes the hamlet of Tower Hill.

The village centre is a large green on the edge of nearby Chipperfield common.

It stands on a chalk plateau at the edge of the Chiltern Hills, some 130 to 160 metres above sea level.

Research Tips

• Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, Register Office Block CHR002, County Hall, Hertford SG13 8EJ. Indexes and Catalog
• Hertfordshire Family History Society
• Ordnance Survey map of Hertfordshire 1900 provided by A Vision of Britain through Time
• Ordnance Survey map of Hertfordshire 1944 provided by A Vision of Britain through Time
• GENUKI outlines information for genealogists for the county. It is also a doorway to pages covering individual parishes.
• Joiner's Marriage Index is available for Hertfordshire on GENUKI. Individual parishes are covered separately.
• Wikimedia Commons has a variety of maps of Hertfordshire, and parts of Hertfordshire, past and present.
• A Vision of Britain through Time is a website produced by the Department of Geography of the University of Portsmouth. It outlines all parishes as they were in the 19th century.
• The FamilySearch Wiki lists its collections of church records and vital records along with those provided by other organizations, both commercial and voluntary.
• The commercial website FindMyPast also has a collection of wills and newspaper transcriptions, as well as the "1939 Register" (an equivalent to the census gathered at the beginning of World War 2).
• The hundred of Dacorum: Introduction as provided by British History Online in the Victoria County History of Hertfordshire, volume 2, pp 141-142
• The parish of Kings Langley ibid, volume 2, pp 234-245