White Notley, Essex Genealogy

England   Essex   Essex Parishes



Parish History
White Notley St Etheldreda is an Ancient parish in the county of Essex.

St Etheldreda was an East Anglian princess of the 7th century who was twice married but was wife only in name. Her first husband, Tondbert, gave her the Isle of Ely as a dowry and made no difficulties when he found she wished to live as a nun. He died three years after their marriage.

She wished to spend the rest of her life in the religious retirement at Ely but was forced by her kinsmen into a second marriage with Ecgfrith, King of Northumbria. He was devoted to her but bitterly resented the conditions of their married life. After twelve years he gave in to her entreaties and permitted her to leave him to become a nun. She took veil at Coldingham, but a year later she became the first abbess of a nunnery at Ely which she founded, being consecrated to that office by St Wilfred, Bishop of York.

As abbess, she led a life of great austerity and devotion. She died seven years later in 679 and, it is said, that when the coffin was opened after 16 years her body was uncorrupted. The church occupies the site of a former Roman Villa and temple. It replaced an earlier Saxon church on the site and is 13th century with later remodelling.

White Notley is a parish in Essex, England. The settlement (which includes the outlying hamlet of The Green) lies equidistant between the towns of Witham and Braintree amongst arable farmland, 4 miles in each direction.

Shortly after the completion of the Domesday Book, in 1086, Notley was divided between two barons. Roger Bigod, whose descendants became the Earls of Norfolk, received the lands that became known as White Notley and Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex, became the overlord of what is now Black Notley. Later, White Notley passed into the hands of the d’Engayne family. The origins of the names “White” and “Black” for the Notleys are unknown, but is has been suggested that the prefix “White” might be derived from the nickname of one of the d’Engayne family – “Demi-Blanc”.

Earlier records show that, during the reign of St. Edward the Confessor (1042 – 1066), Notley was in the possession of Harold; Achi (a freeman); Alestan (a freeman); Esgar; Levecild and then the Bishop of London (Robert de Jumièges). In 1086 much of England was surveyed for tax purposes and the information was compiled into the Domesday Book. At that time Notley was held by the Earl of Boulogne, Suene of Essex and Hamo Dapifer.

St Etheldreda was an East Anglian princess of the 7th century who was twice married but was wife only in name. Her first husband, Tondbert, gave her the Isle of Ely as a dowry and made no difficulties when he found she wished to live as a nun. He died three years after their marriage.

She wished to spend the rest of her life in the religious retirement at Ely but was forced by her kinsmen into a second marriage with Ecgfrith, King of Northumbria. He was devoted to her but bitterly resented the conditions of their married life. After twelve years he gave in to her entreaties and permitted her to leave him to become a nun. She took veil at Coldingham, but a year later she became the first abbess of a nunnery at Ely which she founded, being consecrated to that office by St Wilfred, Bishop of York.

As abbess, she led a life of great austerity and devotion. She died seven years later in 679 and, it is said, that when the coffin was opened after 16 years her body was uncorrupted.

White Notley and the larger neighbouring village of Black Notley (located 3 miles to the north-west) formerly constituted one township – Notley. The name is supposed to have been derived from the Old English (Anglo-Saxon) “knut” and “ley” (meaning “nut pasture”) and is mentioned in the Domesday Book (1086 A.D.) as Nutle[i]a.

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 includes parish register, Bishop's Transcripts and Monumental Inscriptions

Essex Online Parish Clerks (OPC)

Census records
Contributor: Include an overview if there is any unique information, such as the census for X year was destroyed. Add a link to online sites for indexes and/or images. Also add a link to the Family History Library Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection.

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
Braintree 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.