Coniscliffe, Durham Genealogy

England Durham



Parish History
Coniscliffe is an ancient parish and the church dedicated to St Edwin is a Norman church which underwent restoration in 1892. The parish on the banks of the River Tees includes High and Low Coniscliffe,Carlbury and Thornton Hall.

CONISCLIFFE (St. Edwin), a parish, in the union of Darlington, S. E. division of Darlington ward, S. division of the county of Durham; containing, with the townships of Carlebury and Low Coniscliffe, 422 inhabitants, of whom 244 are in the township of High Coniscliffe, 4 miles (W. by N.) from Darlington, on the road to Barnard-Castle. The village of High Coniscliffe, in which stands the church, is situated on the north bank of the Tees, occupying an eminence nearly surrounded by quarries. The living is a vicarage, endowed with a portion of the rectorial tithes, and valued in the king's books at £7. 18. 1½.; patron, the Bishop of Durham; impropriator of the remainder of the rectorial tithes, P. H. Howard, Esq. The great tithes have been commuted for £179, and the small for £182; the vicar has a glebe of 60 acres. The church is a very ancient structure, partly in the Norman and partly early English, with a Norman tower surmounted by a handsome spire. There is a place of worship for Wesleyans.

CONISCLIFFE, LOW, a township, in the parish of Coniscliffe, union of Darlington, S. E. division of Darlington ward, S. division of the county of Durham, 3 miles (W.) from Darlington; containing 134 inhabitants. This place is on the north bank of the Tees, and on the road from Darlington to Carlebury. Thornton Hall, within the township, now a farmhouse, was the seat of the Tailbois, the Thornton, the Bowes, and Honeywood families.

From: 'Conhope - Cooknoe', A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 679-682. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50894 Date accessed: 21 March 2011.

Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from July 1837 to the present day. The civil registration article tells more about these records. There are several Internet sites with name lists or indexes. A popular site is FreeBMD.

Church records
To find the names of the neighbouring parishes, use England Jurisdictions 1851. In this site, search for the name of the parish, click on the location "pin", click Options and click List contiguous parishes.

The Parish Registers for the period 1590-1979 are deposited at Durham County Record Office, County Hall, Durham, DH1 5UL (EP/Co).

Durham University Library Archives and Special Collections DDR/EA/PBT/2/58 1762-1846 Parish Register transcripts are available to search free online at FamilySearch Historical Records.

The dates of the post-1760 transcripts have been noted in detail and sometimes only cover years. For most parishes in the collection there are gaps in the sequence of transcripts. It is advisable to consult the original parish registers for these years and events.

Poor Law Unions
Darlington Poor Law Union, Durham

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Durham Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Maps and Gazetteers
Maps are a visual look at the locations in England. Gazetteers contain brief summaries about a place.


 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
Contributor: add any relevant sites that aren’t mentioned above.