Place:St. Leonards, Buckinghamshire, England

Watchers
NameSt. Leonards
Alt namesSt Leonardssource: alt name (St instead of St.)
TypeVillage
Coordinates51.7552°N 0.6837°W
Located inBuckinghamshire, England
See alsoCholesbury-cum-St Leonards, Buckinghamshire, Englandcivil parish of which it became part in 1934
Amersham (rural district), Buckinghamshire, Englandrural district of which St Leonards was a part 1894-1974
Chiltern, Buckinghamshire, Englanddistrict which St Leonards joined in 1974


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

St Leonards is a small village in the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire, England. It is 3 miles east of Wendover and 4 miles south of Tring, Hertfordshire. A short section of Grim's Ditch delineates the northern end of the village, which lies within the civil parish of Cholesbury-cum-St Leonards.

Contents

History

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

Around 1700 a number of unlicensed alehouses were opened and soon closed by the constables. The first licensed premise was the White Lion in 1714. Having ceased trading in 2015, an attempt to change use to residential was unsuccessful; and so through until June 2021, the pub premises were being refurbished under new ownership. The Pub is now open and running as a regular local pub, but with a mediterranean food menu. The extensive Commons at St Leonards were enclosed in 1816.[1] St Leonards Parish Hall was built in 1938 behind which there are extensive playing fields. St Leonards National School, which was founded in 1860, across the road from the church, and remained open until 1973 when children of the village transferred to the Hawridge and Cholesbury Church of England School in Hawridge. It is now a private house. Gilberts Hill acquired its name from the post Office and grocers shop, once run by Samuel and Phoebe Gilbert which closed in 1975.[2]


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

When civil parishes were established in 1896 the village was assigned to the parish of Aston Clinton and St Leonards. From 1934 St Leonards has formed part of Cholesbury-cum-St Leonards parish which, in addition to St Leonards comprises Cholesbury, Buckland Common and Hawridge

Research Tips

Registration Offices

Birth, marriage and death certificates can now be ordered online from Buckinghamshire County Council. The full postal address is Buckinghamshire Register Office, County Hall, Walton Street, Aylesbury, HP20 1YU.

The Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies (County Hall, Walton Street, Aylesbury, HP20 1UU) holds

  • Church of England and Nonconformist churches including registers of baptism, marriage and burial.
  • Around 35,000 wills proved by the Archdeaconry of Buckingham.
  • County and District Councils (lists of councillors, minutes of meetings, etc).
  • Quarter and Petty Session courts.
  • Landed estates of families including the Aubrey-Fletchers, Hampdens, Carringtons and Fremantles.
  • Historic maps including OS, tithe and inclosure maps
  • A wide range of local history books, some for loan.
  • Pamphlets and articles of local history interest.
  • Local newspapers
  • Computers for access to family history resources like Ancestry and FreeBMD.
  • Published material is listed in the Library Catalogue.
  • Catalogues to some of our manuscript material is available through Access to Archives, part of The National Archives (TNA). Their database contains catalogues describing archives held locally in England and Wales and dating from the eighth century to the present day.

In Buckinghamshire, as with other counties in England and Wales, the location of offices where Births, Marriages and Deaths were registered has altered with other changes in local government. A list of the location of Registration Offices since civil registration began in 1837 has been prepared by GENUKI (Genealogy: United Kingdom and Ireland). The table also gives details of when each Registration Office was in existence. In the case of Buckinghamshire, the same registration offices were used for the censuses since 1851. Buckinghamshire now only has a central registration office at County Hall in Aylesbury, but there are facilities for registering births, marriages and deaths in specific libraries around the county.

Nineteenth Century Local Administration

English Jurisdictions is a webpage provided by FamilySearch which analyses every ecclesiastical parish in England at the year 1851. It provides, with the aid of outline maps, the date at which parish records and bishops transcripts begin, non-conformist denominations with a chapel within the parish, the names of the jurisdictions in charge: county, civil registration district, probate court, diocese, rural deanery, poor law union, hundred, church province; and links to FamilySearch historical records, FamilySearch Catalog and the FamilySearch Wiki. Two limitations: only England, and at the year 1851.

During the 19th century two bodies, the Poor Law Union and the Sanitary District, had responsibility for governmental functions at a level immediately above that covered by the civil parish. In 1894 these were replace by Rural and Urban Districts. These were elected bodies, responsible for setting local property assessments and taxes as well as for carrying out their specified duties. Thses districts continued in operation until 1974. Urban districts for larger municipalities were called "Municipal Boroughs" and had additional powers and obligations.

Poor Law Unions, established nationally in 1834, combined parishes together for the purpose of providing relief for the needy who had no family support. This led to the building of '"union poorhouses" or "workhouses" funded by all the parishes in the union. The geographical boundaries established for the individual Poor Law Unions were employed again when Registration Districts were formed three years later. In 1875 Sanitary Districts were formed to provide services such as clean water supply, sewage systems, street cleaning, and the clearance of slum housing. These also tended to follow the same geographical boundaries, although there were local alterations caused by changes in population distribution.

Online Historical References

  • GENUKI for Buckinghamshire provides a lot of material on the county history from a variety of aspects. The maps of the hundreds are reproduced from 19th century publications and show the topology as well as the locations of the various parishes. There is also a schematic map covering the whole county. GENUKI does not contain much information about the 20th century and beyond.
  • Local History Online provides a list of local historical organizations. Each of these societies and organizations has its own website.
  • The FamilySearch Wiki on Buckinghamshire explains the jurisdictions relating to civil affairs, parishes and probate (wills and testaments) for each parish in the county and also outlines when these jurisdictions were in existence. The data does not cover the post-1974 period.
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at St Leonards, Buckinghamshire. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.