Fownhope with Fawley, Herefordshire Genealogy

England Herefordshire  Herefordshire Parishes



Parish History
FOWNHOPE (St. Mary), a parish, in the hundred of Greytree, union and county of Hereford, 6 miles (S. E.) from Hereford. The village is situated on the eastern bank of the Wye, the road from Hereford to Newent passing through it. Petty-sessions for the division are held every fourth Monday. The church, a large and wellbuilt edifice, exhibits traces of the Norman, early English, and decorated styles; a Norman tower supports a more recent shingled spire of considerable elevation. There is a chapel of ease at Fawley. About half a mile to the north of the village is an eminence crowned by an ancient camp; and at some distance, on Capler Hill, is a second camp, double trenched, and called Woldbury.

Fownhope is a village and civil parish in Herefordshire which includes the ancient chapel of ease of Fawley Chapel Gazetteer transcription by Colin Hinson and Woldbury.

Fownhope St Mary is an Ancient Parish and includes Fawley chapel within the parish boundaries.Fownhope St Mary

The church of St Mary dates from the 12th century and was restored in 1881; designated a grade I listed building By English Heritage British Listed Building It is one of the larger church buildings in Herefordshire.

See Fownhope wikipedia

Baptist and Plymouth Brethren churches were within the civil parish.

The church of St John the Baptist, Fawley Chapel Fawley Chapel St John the Baptist was formed within the Fownhope Ancient Parish and registers commence as early as, but mostly from 1854.

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 and other types of church records, such as parish chest records. Add the contact information for the office holding the original records.

Link to the Family History Library Catalogue showing the film numbers in their collection with

Parish registers for St. John the Baptist Church, Fawley, 1854-1898

Census records
Census returns for Fownhope 1841-1891

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 FHC Portal Computers here have access to the Family History Centre Portal page which gives free access to premium family history software and websites that generally charge for subscriptions.

to locate local Family History Centres in UK

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

Prior to the 1911 census the household schedule was destroyed and only the enumerator's schedule survives.

The 1911 census of England and Wales was taken on the night of Sunday 2 April 1911 and in addition to households and institutions such as prisons and workhouses, canal boats merchant ships and naval vessels it attempted to include homeless persons. The schedule was completed by an individual and for the first time both this record and the enumerator's schedule were preserved. Two forms of boycott of the census by women are possible due to frustration at government failure to grant women the universal right to vote in parliamentary and local elections. The schedule either records a protest by failure to complete the form in respect of the women in the household or women are absent due to organisation of groups of women staying away from home for the whole night. Research estimates that several thousand women are not found by census search.Find my Past 1911 census search

Poor Law Unions
Hereford 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

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