Place:Watlington, Oxfordshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Watlington is a market town and civil parish in the South Oxfordshire District of Oxfordshire, England about 7 miles (11 km) south of Thame. The parish includes the hamlets of Christmas Common, Greenfield and Howe Hill, all of which are in the Chiltern Hills. The M40 motorway is about 2 1⁄2 miles (4 km) from Watlington. The 2011 UK census recorded the parish's population as 2,727.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Watlington.

A nineteenth century description

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Watlington from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"WATLINGTON, a small town, a parish, and a [registration] subdistrict, in Henley [registration] district, Oxford. The town stands at the foot of the Chiltern hills, 8 miles NE of Wallingford [railway] station; was known, at Domesday, as Watelintone; is a seat of petty sessions; and has a post-office under Tetsworth, a good inn, a police station of 1860, a town hall of 1644, a lecture-hall, an ancient church, two dissenting chapels, an endowed school, charities £102, two breweries, and two annual fairs. The parish includes three liberties, and comprises 3,440 acres. Real property: £6,062. Population: 1,938. Houses: 418. The manors belong to T. S. Carter, Esq., and the Rev. W. P. Hutton; and [Watlington] Park is Mr. Carter's seat. A moated castle of 1338 was here. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford. Value: £240. Patron: T. S. Carter, Esq.

"The [registration] sub-district contains 8 parishes and a chapelry. Acres: 20,313. Population: 4,409. Houses: 913."

Research Tips

• Victoria County History of Oxfordshire, volume 8, long chapter on Watlington.
• A map illustrating the parishes of southeast Oxfordshire as of 1900 will be found under Pyrton Hundred
• Oxfordshire History Centre, St Luke's Church, Temple Road, Oxford, OX4 2HT
• Oxfordshire FHS covers the whole county. The Family History Society provides an interactive map to assist in locating individual parishes and also relates the society's progress in transcribing parish registers and gravestone information for that particular parish. Browse the website to see what else the society can provide.
• Further information from GENUKI
• Ordnance Survey map of Oxfordshire 1900 provided by A Vision of Britain through Time
• Ordnance Survey map of Oxfordshire 1944 provided by A Vision of Britain through Time
• English Jurisdictions 1851, a parish finding aid provided by FamilySearch, particularly helpful in large towns and cities.