Bishop's Wood, Herefordshire Genealogy

Guide to Bishop's Wood, Herefordshire ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
BISHOPSWOOD, a chapelry in Walford and Ruardean parishes, Hereford; on the river Wye, 3¼ miles SSW of Ross r. station. It was constituted in 1845; and its Post Town is Walford under Ross.

Bishopswood All Saints was consecrated in 1845; funded by John Partiridge Esq who lived nearby at the Mansion House and owner of the Bishopswood Estate.

The "Church in the Woods" is on a steep hillside overlooking the Wye valley and is a simple Estate church built from nearby Forest of Dean stone. Electricity did not come to the church until 1963 to replace the oil lamps.

The Mansion House for the estate was destroyed by fire in 1870.

The Ecclesisastical Parish was formed from Walford, Herefordshire and Ruardean, Gloucestershire Ancient Parishes; the parish forms part of the county boundary with Gloucestershire, Ruardean, Gloucestershire being it's neighbour.

Bishopswood is the site of the 1895 discovery of the Bishopswood hoard of 17,458 mid 4th century coins which are now held at the Hereford Museum and Art Gallery. 

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
Bishop's Wood 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.

The Herefordshire Archive and Records Centre houses many parish registers. See The records we hold for a list of records available there. How to contact them:
 * Herefordshire Archive and Records Centre Fir Tree Lane Rotherwas Hereford HR2 6LA Telephone: +44 (0)1432 260750 Email: [mailto:archives@herefordshire.gov.uk archives@herefordshire.gov.uk] Website: Herefordshire Archive and Records Centre

Census records
No census record entry appears in search for Bishop's Wood in the present microfilm listing for either county of Herefordshire or Gloucestershire in the film listing for the Family History Library. Nor is it present in Herefordshire Census Surname Index A-B

FamilySearch Records includes collections of census indexes which can be searched online for free. In addition FamilySearch Centres offer free access to images of the England and Wales Census through the FHC Portal page which gives free access to premium family history software and websites that generally charge for subscriptions.

Category:England Family History Centres to locate local Family History Centres in UK

Introduction to Family History Centers to locate outside UK.

Many archives and local history collections in public libraries in England and Wales offer online census searches and also hold microfilm or fiche census returns.

Images of the census for 1841-1891 can be viewed in census collections at Ancestry (fee payable) or Find My Past (fee payable)

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

Ancestry UK Census Collection

Find my Past census search 1841-1901

Poor Law Unions
Ross Poor Law Union,Herefordshire

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

Websites
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/HEF/Bishopswood/index.html

Contributor: add any relevant sites that aren’t mentioned above.