Sandwich St Mary, Kent Genealogy

England   Kent



Parish History
Sandwich St Mary is an Ancient Parish.

The church which is redundant, contains remains of the Saxon church on the site. The Danes raided the town several times and the French attacks of 1217 and 1457 damaged the church built about 1200. An Earthquake in 1578 damaged the building and is thought to have been the cause of eventual collapse of the tower in 1667. The church was restored by Jospeh Clarje 1869-1874

In 1948 the three parishes were unified and Sandwich St Clement, Kent became the parish church at which time St Mary became disused. Despite plans to demolish it in 1956 it was restored and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. It remains consecrated and is used for some services bu has been the Sandwich Arts Centre and is available for hire as well as being a concert and event venue in the town.

The building has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building.

Civil Registration
Kent County Council (KCC) has a certificate centre at the Mansion House in Tunbridge Wells which holds all the completed registers for Kent since 1 July 1837 and can supply a certified copy of any Kent birth, death or marriage entry from any register within its custody or a Kent civil partnership registration from the government online database.

The Mansion House (Certificate Centre) Grove Hill Road Tunbridge Wells Kent TN1 1EP

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
Kent Online Parish Clerks (OPC)

Family History Library film numbers

Contributor: Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts, non conformist and other types of church records, such as parish chest records. Add the contact information for the office holding the original records.

Census records
Contributor: Include an overview if there is any unique information, such as the census for X year was destroyed. Add a link to online sites for indexes and/or images. Also add a link to the Family History Library Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection. See Kent Census

Poor Law Unions
Eastry Poor Law Union, Kent

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Kent 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.