Thaxted, Essex Genealogy

England   Essex   Essex Parishes



Parish History
Thaxted St John the Baptist, Our Lady and St Lawrence is an Ancient Parish in Essex.

Notable Thaxted buildings include Horham Hall, Thaxted Guildhall dating from around 1450 and John Webb's Windmill built in 1804. The large parish church of St John, built between 1340 and 1510, is renowned for its flying-buttressed spire, which is 181 feet tall and is the only medieval stone spire in the county. It has perpendicular windows and a stained glass representing Adam and Eve. The church, which stands on a hill and overlooks the town, is often referred to as "the Cathedral of 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.

Thaxted appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Tachesteda, Old English for "place where thatch was got." Once a centre of cutlery manufacture, Thaxted went into decline with the rise of Sheffield as a major industrial centre.The name of Cutler's Green, a small hamlet about a mile to the west of Thaxted, recalls the trade that yielded the area's early wealth.

THAXTED (St. Mary), a parish, in the union and hundred of Dunmow, N. division of Essex, 19 miles (N. N. W.) from Chelmsford; containing 2527 inhabitants. This parish, which is of considerable extent, lies on the river Chelmer, near its source, and on the road from Chelmsford to Cambridge. The village is pleasantly situated on the banks of the river, and contains several well-built houses. It was formerly a town of importance, and received a charter from Philip and Mary, vesting the government in a mayor, recorder, two bailiffs, and a council of 20 principal burgesses; but on a writ of quo warranto issued by James II., the corporation resigned their functions, and the market, which was on Thursday, was discontinued. The market was subsequently revived, but it never recovered its early celebrity: fairs are held on the 27th of May and 10th of August, the latter for cattle. The living is a vicarage, valued in the king's books at £24; net income, £450; patron and impropriator, Viscount Maynard, whose ancestor gave £2000 in augmentation of the vicarage. The church is a spacious embattled structure, strengthened by buttresses with canopied niches, and having a tower and crocketed spire 183 feet high, the exact length of the church; the south porch is much enriched. There are places of worship for Baptists, the Society of Friends, and Independents. A free grammar school, founded by Thomas Yardley, is now merged into a national school; and near the church are almshouses for 16 persons, partly supported by sums from various charity funds. A number of Roman coins, and a beautiful amphora, were discovered some years since.

From: Samuel A. Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 321-326. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51332&amp;amp;strquery=thaxted Date accessed: 19 February 2011.

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

Essex Online Parish Clerks (OPC)

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
Dunmow 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
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 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
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