Place:Wanborough, Surrey, England

Watchers
NameWanborough
Alt namesFlexfordsource: settlement in parish
TypeParish (ancient), Civil parish
Coordinates51.231°N 0.662°W
Located inSurrey, England
See alsoWoking Hundred, Surrey, Englandancient county division in which it was located
Guildford Rural, Surrey, Englandrural district in which it was located 1894-1974
Guildford District, Surrey, Englanddistrict municipality covering the area since 1974
source: Family History Library Catalog
the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Wanborough is a rural village and civil parish in the Guildford District of Surrey approximately 6 km west of Guildford on the northern slopes of the Hog's Back. Wanborough lies between Puttenham and Normandy Flexford is the large community surrounding Wanborough railway station. Wanborough grew around and to service Wanborough Manor which is on the site of ancient springs.

In 1536, Waverley Abbey was dissolved and the manor passed into secular ownership. St Bartholomew's Church was in regular use until at least 1675. By 1794, as leaseholder, the Quaker Morris Birkbeck was farming an estate of 1,500 acres (6.1 km2) at Wanborough, where he joined others in England and France who were experimenting with crossbreeding Merino sheep and innovating with modern techniques. He used the church as a wood store and barn. The church's architectural importance is reflected in its Grade I listing.

The present manor house, Wanborough Manor, was built starting in about 1670 by Thomas Dalmahoy, who was MP for Guildford for most of the reign of the restored monarch (that is, Charles II).

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Wanborough.

Surrey Research Tips

Government

Administrative boundaries of the county of Surrey (Surrey History Centre. The centre has a website with a number of useful indexes--titheholders in various parishes, deaths at the county gaol, etc.)

Registration Districts

  • Registration Districts in Surrey from their introduction in 1837 to the present. By drilling down through the links you can follow any parish through the registration districts to which it was attached.

GENUKI provisions

The website GENUKI provides a very comprehensive list of reference sources for the County of Surrey. It includes:

  • Archives and Libraries
  • Church record availability for both Surrey and the former Surrey part of Greater London
  • 19th century descriptions of the ecclesiastical parishes
  • Lists of cemeteries
  • Local family history societies
  • A list of historic maps online

History

  • The Victoria History of the County of Surrey is a series of three volumes available online through British History Online. The volumes were written over the past hundred or so years by a number of authors and cover various sections of Surrey. A list of the volumes and what each contains can be found under the source Victoria History of the County of Surrey. Both volumes 3 and 4 contain areas which are part of Greater London and parts of modern Surrey.

Maps

  • The National Library of Scotland has a website which provides maps taken from the Ordnance Survey England & Wales One-Inch to the Mile series of 1892-1908 as well as equivalent maps for Scotland itself. The immediate presentation is a "help" screen and a place selection screen prompting the entry of a location down to town, village or parish level. These screens can be removed by a click of the "X". The map is very clear and shows parish and county boundaries and many large buildings and estates that existed at the turn of the 20th century. Magnification can be adjusted and an "overlay feature" allows inspection of the area today along with that of 1900. The specific map from the series can be viewed as a whole ("View this map") and this allows the inspection of the map legend (found in the left hand bottom corner. Becoming familiar with the various facilities of these maps is well worth the trouble.
  • Victoria County History chapter on Wanborough