Little Warley, Essex Genealogy

England   Essex



Parish History
Little Warley St Peter is an Ancient Parish in Essex.

The development of the Essex Regiment Barracks in the 1840's created the additional Chapel for the Barracks.

The diocese of Chelmsford was created in 1914, prior to this Essex parishes were in the jurisdiction of the Bishops of London until 1845 when they transferred to the diocese of Rochester. The diocese of Chelmsford has 474 parishes and 600 churches and is the second largest region in the church of England outside London.

Little Warley lies 3 miles south of Brentwood. between Great Warley and Childerditch. The ancient parish comprised 1,691 a.; it included a detached part of 96 a. which lay in Corringham and was transferred to that parish in 1882. (fn. 2) The main part was about 3½ miles long, sloping from a wooded ridge to the Thames plain. The parish was rural and thinly populated until the 19th century, when barracks were built at its northern end. They were closed in 1959, but were replaced in 1964 by the new central offices of the Ford Motor Co. In 1934 Little Warley, previously in Billericay rural district, was divided at the railway line between the urban districts of Billericay (later Basildon) and Brentwood. In 1938 the area south of the railway was transferred from Billericay to Thurrock U.D. The terrain drops from 375 ft. in the north of the parish to 25 ft. in the south, and the soil consists of London clay over a stiff loam. Several streams flow southward: one, which separates Little Warley from Great Warley to the west, joins another stream from Childerditch before flowing into the Mardyke. Little Warley has always been sparsely populated. Twelve inhabitants were recorded in 1086, and in 1671 there were only 23 houses occupied. There were 169 inhabitants in 1801, 163 in 1831, and 216 in 1841. By 1851 the population of the parish had risen to 988, of whom 644 were soldiers. The other 344 included, however, the officers' and men's families and the permanent population of the parish was probably about 250, the highest figure it ever reached while Little Warley was a separate parish. Between 1861 and 1931 permanent population numbered between 150 and 200. The road pattern of Little Warley has remained virtually unchanged for the past two centuries and probably for much longer. The village lies in the centre of the parish, along Magpie Lane as it runs westward from Childerditch. At Clapgates Magpie Lane is joined from the SW. by Bird Lane. It then turns north up Warley Gap, swinging west into Great Warley near the Headley Arms, formerly the Magpie, from which the lane took its name. Hall Lane runs south from the village for 2½ miles to Old Englands. Eagle Way, which is now a wide road running across the north of the parish, past the Ford offices, originated as a track over Little Warley common. In the early 19th century, after the inclosure of the common and the building of the barracks, it became Barrack Road. At its western end Eagle Way joins Warley Hill, running down to Brentwood station. At its eastern end it joins Hartswood Road, to Shenfield Common, the Avenue, to Ingrave, and Childerditch Lane, which runs south past Scrub Hill. The Eastern Counties railway from London to Brentwood, opened in 1840, was extended to Chelmsford and Colchester in 1843. The London, Tilbury and Southend railway extension from Upminster to Pitsea, opened in 1886, crossed Little Warley north of St. Mary's Lane, the nearest station being at East (now West) Horndon. The Southend arterial road, opened in 1925, cut the parish in two, isolating the church. Before the 19th century settlement was scattered through the parish. Old Englands in the extreme south is a 17th-century farm-house. A mile north lie the church, which in its present form dates from the 15th century, and the Hall of the early 16th century. The former rectory, rebuilt in 1858, stands on an older site about a mile north of the church. In Magpie Lane are Little Bassetts, a 17th-century farm-house, and the weatherboarded Blue House Farm of the 18th century. Clapgate Farm, of c. 1700, was destroyed by bombing in 1945. In the north of the parish, on an unidentified site, there was a beacon in 1626; its name was preserved in the late 18th century by Beacon House Farm and by the 'cottages at the Beacon' in 1794. In the 18th century the common was used for military camps. Brentwood races were also held there; the course for the two-day meeting lay partly under the site of the later barracks. In 1746 Denner Bennett, the lord of the manor, kept the Bull on Warley common, the only alehouse in the parish. By 1769 it had been succeeded by the Greyhound, in Magpie Lane. The modern history of the parish began with the sale of 116 a. of Warley common in 1805, and the subsequent building of the barracks. The sale had been made by George Winn (d. 1827), who, c. 1820 built (Little) Warley Lodge. This is a large house in stock brick looking over the village from the southern rim of Ellens Wood. It was occupied by a succession of tenants in the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1953 it was bought for use as a mental hospital by the South Ockendon hospital group. The first patients were admitted in 1955. In 1974 the hospital was transferred to the Barking and Havering area health authority. After the Second World War some bungalows were built in Hall Lane north of the Southend arterial road; and in the 1960s, after the closure of the barracks, the Ford Motor Co. built central offices on part of the site. Almost opposite, Brentwood U.D.C built houses on 31 a. of the barrack ground on a site now bounded by Eagle Way, Warley Hill, and The Drive.

From: 'Little Warley', A History of the County of Essex: Volume 7 (1978), pp. 174-180. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=42834&amp;amp;strquery=little warley Date accessed: 03 February 2011.



Little Warley is a parish which for administrative purposes is the district in Brentwood, Essex. It is situated south of Thorndon Country Park.

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
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. Add links to the Family History Library Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection

Online images are available Seax - Essex Archives Online From the Essex Record Office St peter See also Essex Regiment Chapel.

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.

Index for the Census may be searched at FamilySearch Historical Records

http://www.1881pubs.com/ for details of public houses in the 1881 census

Poor Law Unions
Billericay Poor Law Union, Essex

No records of manorial courts survive for Little Warley. There are parish vestry minutes for 1718–71 and overseers' accounts and rates for 1749–95. In the 18th century vestry meetings were held only once or twice a year, and the rector or, usually, the assistant curate took the chair. Five or six of the more substantial farmers normally attended the meetings, and they shared the parish offices among them. There were two churchwardens between 1719 and 1730, and despite a distinction drawn between the 'nominal' one and the one who was 'to act', both submitted accounts of their expenditure. There was only one warden after 1730; from 1733 he was appointed by the rector. From 1718 to 1750 there was a single overseer of the poor; thereafter two were often appointed, but the account was still submitted in the name of one. When Thomas Biggs died in 1757, his widow Elizabeth succeeded him as overseer. She again held the office in the years 1763–5 and 1779–81, but usually acted through her son, John Biggs. Little Warley had a single constable; at the end of the century this office was combined with that of church clerk, a post to which there were appointments in 1725 and from 1763. There were usually two surveyors. The rateable value of the parish was £570 in 1749. It was continuously revised, and by 1794 was £926. By 1815 it had risen to £1,630, but it later declined, presumably because of the closing of the camp; in 1837 it was £1,122. In the early 18th century Little Warley had few poor. In 1723 there were only four regular pensioners who were apparently paid monthly. Poor children were sometimes bound as apprentices within the parish, but the practice was unpopular, and in 1768 the vestry resolved to end it. Out-relief was given throughout the century. The homeless poor were boarded out, and since Little Warley had no workhouse of its own, two or three were sent to Great Warley workhouse from 1783. After the closure of Great Warley workhouse in 1830 Little Warley seems to have started using the house belonging to Chappington's charity as a poorhouse. In the earlier 18th century medical treatment was provided on a casual basis, as in 1719 when Richard Twydell, surgeon, agreed to take 5 guineas if he cured a patient, but only 2 guineas if the patient died under his hand. About 1750, however, the parish appears to have retained a doctor for a decade or more at 2 guineas a year. Thereafter no regular retainer seems to have been paid until 1788. In the three years 1782–5 approximately 86 per cent of the overseer's expenditure was spent on the poor. If the proportion was constant in the 18th century, about £43 a year was spent on the poor in the period 1749–80, and about £82 in the period 1780–95. From 1804 to 1817 expenditure on the poor averaged £195, in the worst years (1805–6 and 1812–13) reaching £281 and £265 respectively. Comparable figures are not available for later years, but it seems likely that an improvement in 1816–17 was followed by greatly increased distress among the poor in 1817–19. (In 1835 Little Warley became part of Billericay poor-law union.

From: 'Little Warley', A History of the County of Essex: Volume 7 (1978), pp. 174-180. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=42834&amp;amp;strquery=little warley Date accessed: 03 February 2011.

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