Place:West End, Surrey, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

West End is a village and civil parish in the Surrey Heath District of Surrey, England between the towns of Camberley and Woking, 4 miles (6.4 km) west and east respectively.

West End may have obtained its name because it was the west of Chobham, 2 miles (3.2 km) ENE. The 1845 map reproduced by EJ Willson provides boundaries at that date. Its direct predecessor named Westend was in 1870-72 described by John Marius Wilson in his Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72 as "a tything in Worplesdon parish, Surrey; 3¼ miles NW of Guildford. Population: 341." A dependency on Worplesdon church, as its tything, is attested in the medieval period until the late 19th century, after which the area formed part of the parish of Chobham.

The village was, until the mid 20th century, made up of scantily farmed smallholdings amid substantial common land - West End Common to the west is comparable in size to Chobham Common to the north; both dwarf the built-up heart of the village. West End Common includes training ranges of the British army and is separated by a smaller public area, Brentmoor Heath, which shares in naturally wet, acid heathland, a rare soil type. In geology, the Bagshot Formation is apparent in parts of the village.

West End lies between Bagshot and Brookwood railway stations, each 3 miles (4.8 km) away. The River Bourne runs through the village from its sources to the immediate west. West End and Bisley have little commerce and industry compared to adjoining settlements, with parks, grassland areas and separated by Green Belt buffers. A golf course, plant nurseries and farms adjoin the clustered village centre.

The "parish church", i.e. Church of England church, of Holy Trinity, West End serves a similar area ecclesiastical parish and is a small building consisting of a chancel consecrated in 1890, nave consecrated in 1842, and a vestry built in 1906. The material is stone and the style is 13th century. Over the west end is a small bell-turret with a square spire above the entrance. Recognising rising population and housebuilding, the village gained its ecclesiastical parish standing in 1895.

In the 20th century many houses were added to the village, during which period books on the county and subject of nurseries show it to be a significant economic centre of nursery gardening. The modern civil parish was created in 1968, but it is listed as a "parish-level unit" under Bagshot Rural District in A Vision of Britain through Time

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.)

• In 1889 the County of London was created, and the areas of the modern London boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark and Wandsworth were removed from Surrey. The records of these areas are held either by the London Metropolitan Archives or by the local boroughs, but the Surrey History Centre holds pre-1889 Quarter Sessions records for this area.
• Also in 1889, Croydon was made into a county borough exempt from county administration. Croydon became a London borough in 1965, and most Croydon records are held by the Croydon Local Studies Library and Archives.
• In 1965 more of Surrey was lost to London, with the creation of the London boroughs of Kingston, Merton, Richmond, Sutton and an expanded Croydon. For these areas, records are held by the local boroughs (either in their archives or local studies libraries) or the Surrey History Centre. The London Metropolitan Archives may also have some material.
• In 1965 Staines and Sunbury were transferred from Middlesex to Surrey. In 1974 these areas became the new District of Spelthorne. Most records relating to the former Middlesex area are held by the London Metropolitan Archives.
• In February 2020 FindMyPast announced it had added a substantial number of baptisms, marriages and burials to its database for Surrey. FindMyPast is a pay website.

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.

West End does not appear in the Victoria County History of Surrey because it was not a parish in the 19th century. Notes may be found under Chobham