Temple Balsall, Warwickshire Genealogy

{{Infobox England Jurisdictions. {{Infobox England Jurisdictions }}
 * image = St Mary the Virgin Temple Balsall Warwickshire.jpg
 * caption =
 * Type = Chapelry
 * County = Warwickshire
 * Hundred = Hemlingford
 * Poor Law Union = Meriden; Solihull
 * Registration District = Meriden; Solihull
 * PRbegin = 1736; For more records see Hampton in Arden
 * BTbegin = 1809
 * Province = Canterbury
 * Diocese = Worcester
 * Archdeaconry =
 * Archdeaconries =
 * Rural Deanery = Arden
 * Parish =
 * Peculiar =
 * Chapelry =
 * Probate Court = Court of the Manor of Temple Balsall
 * Archdeaconry Court =
 * Bishops Court =
 * Prerogative Court =
 * Archive = Warwickshire County Record Office

Parish History
BALSALL, Balshall, or Temple-Balsall, a chapelry in the parish of Hampton-in-Arden, Warwick; 3 miles E of Knowle r. station, and 9 W by S of Coventry. Additional information:

Temples Balsall St Mary the Virgin was made an Ecclesiastical parish in 1863.Temple Balsall was previously a chapelry of Hampton in Arden, Warwickshire Ancient Parish in Warwickshire.

It is named after, and dates from the time of, the Knights Templar. They farmed about 650 acres (2.6 km2) of the estate in the 12th century, and established a preceptory where a number of brothers lived and ran the estate. After the Order was suppressed, the estate was given to the Knights Hospitaller of St John. They lost it when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries and Queen Elizabeth I gave the estate to Robert Dudley.

The 13th century church and Old Hall, and 17th century almshouses survive Balsall, originally part of Hampton-in-Arden, was made a separate ecclesiastical parish in 1863 and was enlarged by the inclusion of part of Knowle in 1932. It is roughly an equilateral triangle, some 3½ miles from its base to its northern apex, with Berkswell on the east and Knowle and Barston on the west. The country is open, with very little woodland and many small streams and ponds, rising from 300 ft. in the north to about 400 ft. in the south. The village lies close to the River Blythe at the junction of Knowle and Barston parishes. The older roads are mostly lanes, but in the south-east on what was Balsall Heath a number of straight roads have been laid out since the inclosure in 1802, and here in the modern settlement of Meer End is the half-timbered mission church of St. Richard, opened in 1929. There is also a small modern church of St. Peter, Balsall Common, built of red brick.

From: 'Parishes: Balsall', A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 4: Hemlingford Hundred (1947), pp. 86-91. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=42661&amp;strquery=temple balsall Date accessed: 22 February 2011.

Temple Balsall (grid reference SP207760) is a hamlet within the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull in the English West Midlands. It was formerly in Warwickshire.

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
Temple Balsall 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.

Information about the parish may be found on Warwickshire Online Parish Clerks. Records are also available at the Warwickshire County Record Office.

Poor Law Unions
Solihull Poor Law Union, Warwickshire

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