Lower Hardres, Kent Genealogy

England   Kent England    Kent Parishes

Guide to Lower Hardres, Kent family history and genealogy: parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.



Parish History
HARDRES, LOWER (St. Mary), a parish, in the union of Bridge, hundred of Bridge and Petham, lathe of St. Augustine, E. division of Kent, 3 miles (S.) from Canterbury.

Lower Hardres is a village and civil parish in the City of Canterbury district of Kent, see Lower Hardres Wikipedia

Lower Hardres (pronounced "hards") St Mary is an Ancient Parish in the Diocese of Canterbury, a map of the parish boundary is available at A church near you.

The Hardres family owned the two villages (nearby Upper Hardres, Kent ) from the 12th century.

The Church of St Mary, School Lane, Lower Hardres was built in 1831-1832 and has been designated as a grade II listed building and is replacement within the same churchyard for an earlier predecessor.

See Edward Hasted The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 9 (1800), pp. 299-303 Hardres+ at British History Online and Kent Churches website

Civil Registration
See Bridge Registration District

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
parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

Kent Online Parish Clerks (OPC)

Land Tax
Images for Lower Hardres are available at FamilySearch Records see England, Kent, Land Tax Assessments (FamilySearch Historical Records) 1780-1832

Census records
The 1851 census of England and Wales attempted to identify religious places of worship in addition to the household survey census returns.

Prior to the 1911 census the household schedule was destroyed and only the enumerator's schedule survives.

The 1911 census of England and Wales was taken on the night of Sunday 2 April 1911 and in addition to households and institutions such as prisons and workhouses, canal boats merchant ships and naval vessels it attempted to include homeless persons. The schedule was completed by an individual and for the first time both this record and the enumerator's schedule were preserved. Two forms of boycott of the census by women are possible due to frustration at government failure to grant women the universal right to vote in parliamentary and local elections. The schedule either records a protest by failure to complete the form in respect of the women in the household or women are absent due to organisation of groups of women staying away from home for the whole night. Research estimates that several thousand women are not found by census search.

Poor Law Unions
Bridge 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.

See England, Kent, Wills and Probate (FamilySearch Historical Records)

Local Family History Centre
Canterbury Family History Centre, Kent

Maidstone Family History Centre, Kent


 * FHC Portal This centre has access to the Family History Centre Portal page which gives free access in the centre to premium family history software and websites that generally charge for subscriptions.
 * Publication of the restricted access images England, Kent, Wills and Probate (FamilySearch Historical Records) and England, Kent, Land Tax Assessments (FamilySearch Historical Records) means that it is advisable to telephone the centre to reserve a computer if you wish to view these

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