Place:Mountnessing, Essex, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

:the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Mountnessing is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Brentwood in south Essex, England. It is situated to the northeast of the town of Brentwood, and southwest of Ingatestone. A large proportion of the houses are situated on the Roman (the A12 major road until the village was bypassed in the 1970s). The village is approximately equidistant between the two closest railway stations of Shenfield and Ingatestone. Features of Mountnessing are its windmill and the parish church of St Giles. St.Giles church is located midway between Mountnessing and Billericay. end of Wikipedia contribution

The parish (#15 on the map) was in the Billericay Rural District from 1894 until 1934 when it was transferred to Chelmsford Rural District. Since 1974, when boundaries were redefined, it has been located in the Brentwood District or Borough. The parish was originally in the Chelmsford Hundred.

The following description from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72 is provided by the website A Vision of Britain Through Time (University of Portsmouth Department of Geography).

MOUNTNESSING, two villages and a parish in Billericay [registration] district, Essex. The villages are Mountnessing and Mountnessing-Street; and they stand on a branch of the river Wid; the former 2 miles S by W of Ingatestone [railway] station, and 3¾ NE of Brentwood; the latter adjacent to the Great Eastern railway, 1½ mile NW of the former.

The parish has a post office under Brentwood, and comprises 4,005 acres. Real property: £7,017. Population: 844. Houses: 176. The property is divided among a few. Thoby Priory here was founded, in 1141, for Augustinian canons, by Michael Capra Roisi; had, at the dissolution, an income estimated at £75; and has left some remains. A mansion bearing the name of Thoby Priory, is the seat of R. Vickerman, Esq. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Rochester. Value: £117. Patron: Lord Petre. The church comprises nave and two aisles, and was recently in disrepair. There are a school with £30 a year from endowment, and charities £23.

Research Tips

• Essex Record Office handles Essex archives within the county. The address is Wharf Road, Chelmsford, Essex CM2 6YT.
• The Essex Society for Family History covers topics of genealogical interest throughout the present County of Essex (i.e. excluding the western area now in Greater London). Subscription necessary.
• GENUKI provides a list of towns and parishes leading to pages for individual parishes with useful local information for genealogists and family historians.
• Wikimedia Commons has a set of maps of the old hundreds of Essex. These do not show the individual parishes within the hundreds.
• For very detailed investigation Wikimedia Commons also has a series of 176 part maps of the Ordnance Survey 1st series 1:10560, Map of Essex
• FamilySearch 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).
• 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.
• British History Online has transcribed eight volumes of the Victoria County History project for Essex. Seven of these cover the history of parts of the county in great detail, although the project is incomplete for Essex as a whole. Ownership of land through the centuries can often be traced here. The volumes of note are as follows:

Volume 4, Ongar Hundred, including Chipping and High Ongar, Chigwell, Stondon Massey and Theydon Bois (26 parishes in all).

Volume 5, Becontree Hundred outside Greater London. A thematic account of the growth of metropolitan Essex since 1850. Also contains topographical accounts of Barking, Ilford, Dagenham and other areas of Essex now within Greater London.

Volume 6, parishes of Becontree Hundred now within the London boroughs of Newham, Waltham Forest and Redbridge. These include West and East Ham, Walthamstow and Wanstead.

Volume 7, Covers the ancient parishes, formerly within the Liberty of Havering-atte-Bower and now within the London borough of Havering, and those in Chafford hundred in western Essex now bordering London. It includes accounts of Hornchurch, Romford, Havering.

Volume 8, accounts of the parishes of Chafford and Harlow Hundreds, including Brentwood, Harlow and Thurrock.

Volume 9, the Borough of Colchester, describes the life of the oldest and for long the largest town in Essex from the Iron Age to 1990.

Volume 10, Lexden Hundred (part), includes Dedham, Earls Colne and Wivenhoe and other parishes to the north and west of Colchester.

• As of June 2019 Ancestry (Worldwide subscription required) includes Essex, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812, these early records are from parish registers of baptisms and burials during the years 1538–1812, and marriages during the years 1538-1754. These are in addition to their previous holdings:

• Essex, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1918: 3,937,941 records
• Essex, England, Church of England Marriages, 1754-1935: 1,968,439 records
• Essex, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-1994: 730,118 records