Myland St Michael, Essex Genealogy

England   Essex   Essex Parishes



Parish History
Myland St Michael is an Ancient Parish in the county of Essex.Other places in the parish include: No Man's Land.

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 ancient parish of Mile End, a compact area of 2,352 a. (951.8 ha.), probably took its name from its original settlement a mile north of Colchester town, but by the late 13th century it was sometimes called Myland. It did not become a separate parish until the 13th century.

In the 19th century Mile End's boundary followed natural features on the south along the river Colne and on the north along Black brook and Salary brook except for a small deviation round an intrusive part of Great Horkesley; on the east and west it mainly followed roads and lanes. At the south-west corner the boundary curved inwards round the built-up area of St. Peter's parish as it existed in the 13th century. On the east side the border turned inwards to skirt detached parts of All Saints' and St. Botolph's parishes. From 1841 to 1871 an extra-parochial place of a few acres called 'No Man's Land', on Cock Common in the northeast corner of Mile End next to Ardleigh, was included in Mile End. The land rises from below 15 metres on the Colne in the south to more than 50 metres over much of the north part of the parish, falling away to the east and west. The soil is mainly silty and sandy clay, with some gravel and sand in the north-west corner and some London clay in the south and east.

The main road running northwards through the parish from Colchester to Nayland and Sudbury (Suff.), sometimes called Mile End causeway, was mentioned in 1298. A branch led west to West Bergholt. Severalls Lane, turnpiked in 1696, ran from the main Colchester-Ipswich road, part of which forms the north-east parish boundary, north-west across Mile End towards Langham. Minor roads linked those roads and connected Mile End with neighbouring parishes. Colchester's first railway station, opened in 1843, lay on the road from Colchester to Mile End, just south west of the parish boundary. The railway line from Ipswich to Colchester, opened in 1846, ran across the south part of the parish.

There was presumably a settlement at Mile End by 1254 when the church was recorded. In the Middle Ages settlement seems to have been scattered over the unwooded areas of the parish, including Tubswick recorded from 1295, named from the Tubbe family, and Braiswick. In 1296 only 7 inhabitants were assessed for subsidy, compared with 13 in Greenstead and 16 in Lexden; Simon of Nayland, master of St. Mary Magdalen's hospital in 1301, was the most highly taxed inhabitant. Nineteen men were assessed to the lay subsidy in 1523, fewer than in Lexden and Greenstead, but more than in West Donyland. Of those taxed Robert Northen was worth more than the other 18 together. He was probably Robert Northen of Mile End Hall, cousin of Robert Northen of Colchester, a wealthy clothier. In 1588 twenty three able-bodied men aged between 16 and 60, almost all labourers, were liable for military service. There were 50 households in 1671, of which 29 were exempt from hearth tax. In 1692 the poll tax was assessed on 94 adults. More burials than baptisms were recorded between 1700 and 1720 but baptisms outnumbered burials in most years thereafter until 1800.

By 1801 the population had reached 299 and there were 44 houses. The population doubled between 1801 and 1841, the most rapid growth being between 1811 and 1821, and in the 1830s before the opening of the railway. Between 1841 and 1901 the population increased from 596 to 1,373. The number of inhabited houses increased to 124 in 1841 and 300 in 1901.

In the Middle Ages much of Mile End was woodland and heath, but much of the woodland had been cleared by the end of the 16th century. All of the parish was subject to royal forest jurisdiction. Kingswood included all of the parish except probably the part west of the Nayland road. The north part of Kingswood became the estate called Kingswood and Kingswood heath, later known as the Severalls and Mile End heath. Part of the south became the land of Mile End manor. West of the Nayland road lay part of the ancient wood of Cestrewald or Chesterwell in the north; in the south was part of the Braiswick estate, the rest of which was in Lexden.

'Modern Colchester: Introduction', A History of the County of Essex: Volume 9: The Borough of Colchester (1994), pp. 176-179. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=21986&amp;strquery=colchester st leonard Date accessed: 08 February 2011. &gt;

Myland an alternative to the original "Mile End" is a civil parish in Essex, England that is now a suburb of Colchester. The original village was located approximately one mile north of the middleborough, or the centre of the Borough of Colchester. It probably acquired its name from its distance from the centre of Colchester.

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
Colchester Poor Law Union,Essex

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.