Place:Tolleshunt Major, Essex, England

Watchers
NameTolleshunt Major
Alt namesBeckinghamsource: Family History Library Catalog
Toleshuntasource: Domesday Book (1985) p 106
Tollensumtesource: Domesday Book (1985) p 105
Tolleshunt-Majorsource: Family History Library Catalog
TypeParish
Coordinates51.767°N 0.767°E
Located inEssex, England
See alsoMaldon Rural, Essex, Englandrural district in which it was located 1894-1974
Maldon District, Essex, Englanddistrict municipality of which it has been part since 1974
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog


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

Tolleshunt Major is a small village approximately five miles northeast of Maldon, in the Maldon District of Essex, England. It is situated on the northern bank of the River Blackwater. The village consisted of just over one hundred dwellings and had a population of 695 in the UK census of 2011.

The parish is bordered by the villages of [[Place:Little Totham, Essex, England|Little Totham, Goldhanger, Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Tolleshunt Knights and Great Totham. Nearby towns include Maldon, Colchester, Chelmsford and Tiptree.

History

The Tolleshunt group of villages (Major, Knights, D'Arcy and Tollesbury) grew up in the area settled by the Saxon chief Toll who cleared areas of forest around local water sources. Tolleshunta was the Anglo Saxon name for "Toll's spring". The name Tolleshunt Major (or Mauger as it was previously known), was granted by King Henry VIII to Stephen Beckenham, in 1544. Beckenham bought various landscapes in and around the village and built a semi-fortified manor house with a turreted gatehouse within a red-brick boundary wall. This became known as "Beckingham House". The house was demolished in 1782 and was replaced by a farmhouse. The former gatehouse which formed part of Beckingham Manor, complete with turrets and boundary wall still remain.

In 1609, Beckingham completed the design and construction of a heraldic shield which featured statuettes of himself and his wife Alvis Beckingham (née Terral). The monument was displayed at the parish church of St. Nicholas. This has since been pulled down and scrapped.

Beckingham family

The Beckingham family originally came from Wiltshire. Stephen’s son Thomas Beckingham received a knighthood and died in 1633. His son, William, became heir to the estate aged 12. The estate was eventually sold to Sir Thomas Adams, an alderman from London. The manor house changed hands several times before eventually becoming the property of the current owners.

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
  • A map illustrating Tolleshunt Major's relationship to its surrounding parishes may be found on the page describing Maldon Rural District of which it was part between 1894 and 1974. It is marked as #29 on the map.
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Tolleshunt Major. 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.