Wormingford, Essex Genealogy

England   Essex   Essex Parishes



Parish History
Wormingford St Andrew is an Ancient Parish in Essex.

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.

The ford from which the parish takes its name (originally Withermund's ford) was probably that in the river Stour by the watermill, at the bottom of Church Road, where there is a sand bank in the middle of the river. A ford further east near Garnons has also been suggested, but seems less likely. The Church Road ford was replaced before 1802 by a bridge, called a horse-bridge in 1812. About 1821 Messrs. Jones, who leased the river tolls, built a new bridge, apparently a narrow wooden footbridge. It collapsed in the winter of 1895-6 and was replaced by an iron bridge in 1898.

The modern form of the place name, recorded from 1254, gave rise to three stories of dragons, (worm meaning serpent or dragon). The first story says the village is the location where the patron saint of England, St. George, famously killed his dragon. A mound in the village is said to cover the body of the legendary dragon.

The second, apparently unsubstantiated, is that a crocodile escaped from Richard I of England's menagerie in the Tower of London and caused much damage in Wormingford before being killed by Sir George Marney. There is a stained glass window in the local parish church (St Andrew's) which depicts this event.

The third, written in 1405 by John de Trokelowe, a monk, told of a dragon who threatened Richard Waldegrave's territory near Sudbury but fled into the Mere when pursued.

RAF Wormingford was originally a relief airfield for bi-planes in the First World War. The airfield was expanded by Richard Costain Ltd and a number of sub-contractors during the period 1942/43. Earmarked for an Eighth Heavy Bomb Group, nothing ever came of this and at the end of November 1943 the yet to be completed station was handed to the Ninth Air Force for use by one of its Fighter Groups. On the 30 November, the 362nd Fighter Group arrived at Wormingford.

The Group was assigned to the 70th Fighter Wing. It did not fly its first mission until 8 February 1944. Its operational status at Wormingford was a short one and they left on 8 April 1944. During its stay, the 362nd mounted over 30 missions, losing five aircraft.

The next group to move in was the 55th Fighter Group with its P-38 Lightnings from Nuthampstead in Hertfordshire. The 55th's role as a fighter group was to be a short one due to some of the disadvantages of the aircraft. However, the 55th later become renowned for ground strafing and ground attack bombing. On D-Day, the P-38 groups were given the task of acting as convoy escorts for the armada of ships moving to and from Normandy. The 55th was selected to serve with the occupation forces in Germany and in July 1945 it left Wormingford for Gielbelstadt airfield in Bavaria. The old airfield is now used by the Essex and Suffolk Gliding Club.

The church of ST. ANDREW, on the west side of Church Road, is built of flint rubble with some brick, and has dressings of limestone and brick. The brick, which is mostly in the 12th- century work, includes re-used Roman roof tiles as well as larger wall bricks. The church comprises chancel with north vestry and organ chamber, nave with north aisle and south porch, and west tower. The nave and west tower are of the early 12th century and the tower retains several original windows. A north aisle was added to the nave in the 14th century and the south wall was given new windows and a new doorway. At about the same time the chancel was rebuilt and a new chancel arch was put in. The 14th-century piscina and sedilia in the chancel survive. The south porch was added in the 15th century. In 1589 the church was so decayed it let the rain in. In 1633 the porch needed tiling and the chancel whiting. The 'steeple' was repaired c. 1652. By 1684 the porch still needed tiling, and the chancel extensive repairs; the tower needed roughcasting and the spire shingling. The church fabric had deteriorated further by 1705. In 1709 the spire of the tower was removed and replaced by a turret. In 1766 the whole roof and walls were thoroughly repaired, and the clerestory may have been added. A vestry was built on the north side of the chancel c. 1815. There was a west gallery before 1848. Restoration of the church in 1869-70 increased the number of seats from 215 to 263. The clerestory was removed and all the roofs except that of the north aisle were renewed. The gallery was removed, a new stone tower arch built, and the tower opening fitted with seats for the children; a new north vestry and organ chamber were built, and the south porch was rebuilt with its early 15th-century archway reset. The chancel south window retains 14th- century stained glass. The children's seating was replaced in 1899 with a new vestry under the tower. The 16th-century chancel screen was converted into a reredos, presumably in the 17th century or 18th, moved to a position under the tower in 1902, restored to the chancel arch in 1910, and removed in 1970. After an appeal to the diocesan consistory court in 1977 the screen was replaced in the tower arch in 1981. Between 1461 and 1468 the old church bells were replaced by new ones, and two were recast by Richard Bowler in 1591. Four bells were recorded in 1705 and 1768. In 1859 three bells survived, one cracked; one from the 1460s by Joan Sturdy, and Bowler's two. In 1919 they were recast and three new ones added, in memory of Wormingford men killed in the First World War. The church plate included an Elizabethan silver communion cup, and a silver paten of 1718. The 19th-century octagonal font is a copy of the medieval one. Brasses include a civilian of c. 1460 with a livery collar, possibly Thomas Bowden, and a civilian and two wives of c. 1590; both brasses are mounted on the west wall of the tower.

From: 'Wormingford: Church', A History of the County of Essex: Volume 10: Lexden Hundred (Part) including Dedham, Earls Colne and Wivenhoe (2001), pp. 304-306. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=15293&amp;amp;strquery=wormingford Date accessed: 11 February 2011.

Wormingford is a village and civil parish in Essex, England.

The ancient parish of Wormingford is on the south bank of the River Stour, 6 miles (9.7 km) north- west of Colchester and 8 miles (13 km) south-east of Sudbury, Suffolk, covered 2,322 acres (929 hectares). The Stour forms the northern boundary, and the eastern, southern, and western ones follow mainly field boundaries, but sometimes cut through fields. Detached fields totalling 15 acres (61,000 m2) in Little Horkesley, were transferred to that parish in 1889. For administrative purposes the village is within the Colchester district of Essex County Council.

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

Census records
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
Lexden and Winstree Poor Law Union, Essex

Between 1764 and 1836 vestry meetings were attended by the vicar and from three to nine parishioners, usually the principal tenant far- mers who served as churchwardens, overseers, surveyors, and constables, and also from 1829 as assessors. Between 1811 and 1813 and in 1815 and 1816 there were three overseers instead of the usual two. A salaried overseer was recorded in 1822. Women were elected as parish officers in 1785, 1807, and 1814. In 1706 the highway surveyors were found to have been using rate- payers' money illegally to repair the private road to Garnons (then called Gardner farm), which was occupied by one of them. In 1795, during the Napoleonic Wars, Wormingford was com- bined with six neighbouring parishes to provide three men to serve in the navy. In the later 18th century regular cash doles were paid to the poor, besides extraordinary payments for clothing, fuel, washing, mending, nursing, and burials. Some children were boarded out. Cloth was given to the poor, for example, in a half year in 1768 nine persons received amounts ranging from 2 yd. to 7 yd. each. In 1767 a woman was treated at Guys hos- pital, London, at parish expense. There was a salaried doctor in 1777. Between 1764 and 1798 the number of cases of regular relief ranged from 8 to 19. In 1783-5 the numbers of people in families receiving regular relief ranged from 28 to 37, and in families receiving occasional relief from 42 to 56. The Speenhamland system was applied briefly in 1795 and 1796 at a time of high prices: 20 payments were made to men with families, totalling 108 persons. The number of households receiving out relief rose to 38 in 1800. By 1800 out relief was given almost entirely in cash. In 1808 and 1809 some extra payments were made because of the high price of flour. Many recipients were described as ill in the early 19th century, and there were smallpox cases in 1800, 1801, 1807, and 1808. A roundsman system started in 1816, unemployed men being sent to work for different farmers for four days at a time. Between 1827 and 1829 one boy was hired out to work in the village, the vestry receiving his wages. Surveyors paid unem- ployed men 10d. a day in the early 19th century to extract and sift gravel, repair roads and water- courses, and clear snow, mostly in the winter months when farm work was scarce. Eight surviving apprenticeship records from 1764 to 1837 show boys apprenticed by the parish to a merchant, oyster dredger, cord- wainer, mariner, shipowner, husbandman, black- smith, and shoemaker in nearby parishes. In 1765 and 1766 extensive work was carried out on the town house and parish house, perhaps both names for the workhouse. In 1776 the workhouse master was paid 20s. a week for 13 inmates from which he was to provide food, lodging, and clothing; he could take earnings from any who went out to work. From 1778 he agreed to pay doctor's fees, except for smallpox and fractures. Numbers in the workhouse ranged from 13 to 19 between 1789 and 1798, from 18 to 25 between 1799 and 1808, and from 5 to 13 between 1809 and 1814. In 1795 the workhouse master was allowed 1s. 9d. a head which rose to 4s. between 1811 and 1813. Provisions included brandy and brimstone in 1790, beer and sugar for the old people in 1791, and pork, cheese, potatoes, onions, flour, mutton, bacon, cabbage, milk, oatmeal, green tobacco, and beer in 1815 and 1816. Three spin- ning wheels bought in 1801 formed part of the total of 11 in 1802, and, although 4 more were bought in 1815 and 6 in 1818, none was listed in the spinhouse in 1825. There was a pig sty in 1802. A straitjacket was bought in 1811. A house called Lays was rented from John Everard in 1790, probably as an addition to the workhouse, for in 1799 a rent was received from the old workhouse. The parish workhouse, on the Bures road, was built in the late 18th cent- ury. When it was sold in 1837, it had 2 lower rooms, 4 bedrooms, and 5 attics, and apparently included four adjacent cottages with a detached bakehouse and brewhouse, and a large garden. Known as Black House in the 20th century, the weatherboarded house is of two storeys with a mansard-roofed attic. Abutting the east end is a range of cottages with one storey and attic, apparently early 19th century. Annual expenditure on poor relief fell from £154 in 1776, equivalent to 8s. 8d. per head of population, to £125 in 1783-5, 7s. a head. In 1801 costs per head were 51s. 7d., and in 1802 were 37s., but then fluctuated in 1803-16 between 17s. 9d. and 32s. 9d., except for 1813 when they were 42s. 8d.; they reached 55s. 9d. in 1817, fluctuated in 1818-25 between 30s. and 45s. 2d., and then fell to 15s. 11d. in 1834. Before the 1830s Wormingford's rate of expenditure was always one of the higher ones in Lexden hundred.

From: 'Wormingford: Local government', A History of the County of Essex: Volume 10: Lexden Hundred (Part) including Dedham, Earls Colne and Wivenhoe (2001), pp. 303-304. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=15292&amp;amp;strquery=wormingford Date accessed: 11 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
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Web sites
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