Hexham, Northumberland Genealogy

= Parish History =

Hexham St Andrew is an Ancient Parish an abbey and Priory church and includes Priestpople, Gilligate,Hencoats, Hexhamshire High Quarter, Hexhamshire Low Quarter, Hexhamshire Middle Quarter, Hexhamshire Stinted Pasture, Hexhamshire West Quarter, Market, and Moorland.

The parish comprises 4608 acres, of which 30 are common or waste land. The living is a perpetual curacy; net income, £139; patron, H. S. Le Strange, Esq.: the tithes of Hexham township have been commuted for £550. In 1623, Richard Fishborne left a sum of money in trust to the Mercers' Company for the endowment of a lectureship, with which the corn tithes of Erringside, anciently belonging to the monastery, were purchased. The church, which is part of the conventual church, built on the site of the cathedral, is a spacious cruciform structure, exhibiting portions in various styles of English architecture, with a tower rising from the intersection; the nave, burnt by the Scots in 1296, has not been rebuilt. The choir is separated from the transepts by a screen of wood, richly carved in the lower part, and ornamented in the upper with an allegorical painting of the Dance of Death. On the south side of the altar, which is lighted by a large window of elegant tracery, is a gallery of oak, beautifully carved, beneath which are four stalls enriched with tabernacle work; and on the north side is a shrine, or oratory, in the decorated English style, exquisitely adorned with foliated arches, tracery, and figures, and supposed to have been erected for Prior Richard, of Hexham, to whom, also, is attributed a recumbent figure on an altar-tomb adjacent. Among the monuments is one said by Pennant and others to be that of Elfwald, a Northumbrian king, who was killed in 788; but its style appears to be of the thirteenth century. On an altar-tomb is the figure of an armed knight, crosslegged, with a shield of arms identifying the person represented as one of the baronial family of Umfraville; though the effigy is supposed by Wallis, the historian, to be that of the Duke of Somerset, beheaded at Hexham. There are places of worship for Independents and Wesleyans; a Scottish church; and a Roman Catholic chapel, an elegant structure in the decorated English style, built in 1830.

From: 'Heswall - Hexham', A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 497-501. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51028 Date accessed: 14 March 2011.

= Parish Records =

Durham University Library Archives and Special Collections Reference number: DDR/EA/PBT/2/138 Date: 1837-1858 Parish Register transcripts are available to search free online at Record Search.

The dates of the post-1760 transcripts have been noted in detail and sometimes only cover years. For most parishes in the collection there are gaps in the sequence of transcripts. It is advisable to consult the original parish registers for these years and events.

Hexham, St Andrew: Records of baptisms 1643-1948, marriages 1579-1972 and burials 1655-1859 are available at Northumberland Collections Service. Microfilm copies of marriages for the period 1813-1837 can be seen at Tyne and Wear Archives Service. Bishops' Transcripts for the period 1740-1836 are deposited at the Borthwick Institute, University of York and those for 1837-1858 are deposited at Durham University Library Archives and Special Collections, Palace Green, Durham City. The International Genealogical Index (I.G.I.) includes baptisms 1643-1812 and marriages 1579-1812 for this parish, and Boyd's Marriage Index includes marriages 1579-1812 and banns 1754-1812. The Northumberland and Durham Family History Society has published an index to marriages 1754-1851 (microfiche PR206) and a transcript of monumental inscriptions (microfiche TN75). Transcripts of baptisms 1643-1851, marriages and burials 1579-1851, and of monument inscriptions (for Hexham Old Churchyard and Hexham Abbey) are available at Newcastle Central Library, Local Studies Dept.

= Nonconformist Records =

Records for the following nonconformist churches in the parish of Hexham are available at Northumberland Collections Service:


 * Battle Hill (Methodist) - Marriages 1915-1952
 * Cockshaw Grange (Roman Catholic) - Baptisms 1753-1832, marriages 1766-1838 and deaths 1807-1826.(Transcripts of these records are available at Newcastle Central Library, Local Studies Dept.)
 * Ebenezer (Independent) - Births/baptisms 1781-1836. (A transcript of baptisms 1787-1837 is available at Newcastle Central Library, Local Studies Dept.)
 * Hexham (Roman Catholic) - Baptisms 1737-1754,1768-1826, 1832-1926, marriages 1716-1752, 1842-1953 and deaths 1715-1754, 1833-1963.
 * Hexham Dominican Mission (Roman Catholic) - Baptisms 1715-1754.
 * Hexham P.M. Circuit (Methodist) - Baptisms 1880-1963
 * Hexham Wesleyan Circuit (Methodist) - Baptisms 1797-1954. (Transcripts of these records are available at Newcastle Central Library, Local Studies Dept. and they are included on the I.G.I.)
 * Stonecroft and Hexham (Roman Catholic) - Baptisms 1722-1821, marriages 1716-1806, deaths 1715-1754.
 * Trinity (Methodist) - Marriages 1899-1980