Kingsdown, Kent Genealogy

Guide to Kingsdown, Kent ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish register transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
Kingsdown is a small hamlet surrounded by the villages of Frinsted, Milstead, Doddington and Lynsted in Kent, see Kingsdown Wikipedia.

The hamlet is within the civil parish of Milstead and Kingsdown which spans the boundaries of the boroughs of Maidstone and Swale. The area around the hamlet includes the Torry Hill estate and forms part of the Barony of Kingsdown.

The Parish of Kingsdown was within the Diocese of Canterbury. The redundant church of St Catherine is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. It was designed by Edward Welby Pugin to replace a mediaeval church on the site and was built 1866-1877 for the first Lord Kingsdown, Thomas Pemberton Leigh. It is the only Anglican church work undertaken by Edward Welby Pugin. The church is now accessible only by a footbridge above the M2 motorway and is locked with a access by prior arrangement only. The church is designated a grade II listed building by English Heritage. The Church of St Catherine, Downcourt Road, Milstead and Kinsdown British listed building Churches Conservation Trust

See Edward Hasted, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 6 (1798), pp. 112-116 at British History Online and Kent Churches website

This parish should not be confused with Kingsdown with Mappiscombe, Kent or Kingsdown St John, Kent

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

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

Kent Online Parish Clerks has indexes available for select parishes. Records are also available at the Kent Archives.

Land Tax
Images for Kingsdown available at FamilySearch Records see England, Kent, Land Tax Assessments - FamilySearch Historical Records 1780-1832

Poor Law Unions
Milton 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