Place:Bishop's Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Family History Library Catalog

Bishop's Hatfield was an ancient parish and a civil parish until 1951. Its principal settlement was Hatfield and this was also a common name for the parish even in the late 19th century.

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Bishop's Hatfield from John Bartholomew's Gazetteer of the British Isles of 1887:

"Hatfield (or Bishops Hatfield), market town and par. with ry. sta., on river Lea, in co. and 6 miles SW. of Hertford - [parish]: 12,884 ac., [population]: 4059; [Post Office, Telegraph Office], 1 Bank. Market-day, Thursday; in the vicinity is Hatfield House, the seat of the Marquis of Salisbury."

The maps show that it was a very large parish and contained a number of other settlements besides Hatfield, such as Lemsford, Newgate Street Village, Ponsbourne, Stanborough, and Woodside (all redirected here).

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 Broadwater: Introduction and map as provided by British History Online in the Victoria County History of Hertfordshire, volume 3, pp 52-53
• The parish of Hatfield or Bishop's Hatfield ibid, volume 3, pp 91-111