Place:Winterbourne Earls, Wiltshire, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Winterbourne Earls is a village in Wiltshire, England, in the Bourne valley on the A338 road about 3.4 miles (5 km) northeast of Salisbury.

The village adjoins Winterbourne Dantsey. It is part of the civil parish of Winterbourne, formed in 1934 by almalgamating the three ancient parishes of Winterbourne Earls, Winterbourne Dantsey and Winterbourne Gunner.

The name "Earls" came from the Earls of Salisbury who were Lords of the Manor in the thirteenth century. Since then, the parish of Winterbourne Earls has only changed hands twice; in 1551 it was leased to the Nicholas family, by its owners, the Bishops of Salisbury, then in 1799, the Fort family took the lease, and remained at the property until the mid-twentieth century.

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

"WINTERBOURNE-EARLS, a parish in Amesbury [registraion] district, Wilts; 2 miles SSW of Porton [railway] station, and 3½ NNE of Salisbury. Post town, Salisbury. Acres: 1,663. Real property, with [Winterbourne] Dantsey: £3,268. Population: 276. Houses: 60. There are two manors. The living is a vicarage, annexed to [Winterbourne] Dantsey. The church was rebuilt in 1868. There is a Wesleyan chapel."

Research Tips

• From this Ancestry page you can browse the Wiltshire parishes which have parish register transcripts online, quite often from very early dates. However, reading the early ones requires skill and patience. Transcriptions should also be in FamilySearch.
• A further collection of online source references will be found on the county page for Wiltshire.