Barnes, Surrey Family History Guide
Barnes is an Ancient Parish in the county of Surrey.
Other places in the parish include: Barnes Elms and Barn Elms.
Parish church: St Mary
Parish registers begin:
- Parish registers: 1538
- Bishop’s Transcripts: 1700
Nonconformists include:
Table of Contents
Adjacent Parishes
- Hammersmith St Peter, Middlesex
- Hammersmith St Paul, Middlesex
- Mortlake
- Roehampton
- Chiswick St Nicholas, Middlesex
- Putney
- Fulham All Saints, Middlesex
Parish History
A History of the County of Surrey 1912
The parish of Barnes contains 1,027 acres. It lies on the Thames, inside the curve which the river makes, first north and then south, opposite Hammersmith, and is bounded by it on three sides. The towing-path round the bend is in Barnes parish. The Beverley Brook crosses the parish from west to east and joins the Thames.
There are two bridges over the river, Hammersmith Suspension Bridge, built in 1827 and rebuilt in 1886, which connects it with that town, and Barnes Bridge, which carries the loop line of the London and South Western Railway, opened in 1849, over the Thames.
This loop line runs concurrently with the Windsor line as far as Barnes station, after leaving which they divide. The northern part of the parish in the bend of the Thames is low and liable to floods. There is some rich meadow land near the river; the soil of the higher parts is gravel. The Metropolitan Water Board has large reservoirs in Barnes.
The village is situated on the west of the parish near the river. The High Street runs at right angles to the river-bank, and leads to Barnes Green on the east. Church Road leads to the church, a little to the north-east of the village, and the road is continued to Barn Elms. At the other end of High Street, running parallel with the river, is Barnes Terrace, where is a row of old houses. Further to the west this joins Mortlake High Street. Here in the early part of the 18th century many foreigners assembled, especially French refugees.
Barn Elms is the chief house in the district (see manor), but its park, which was the scene of many duels, is now a golf course.
Castelnau was once in the possession of a French refugee family of that name, and now the name is given to a road about a mile long which runs from Hammersmith Bridge to the Ranelagh Grounds, where it branches into two, one branch continuing across the common to Roehampton, the other turning west and running past the church to the south, and the common and pond on the north, down to the river. Here it meets a road which follows the bend of the river to Hammersmith Bridge. From the junction the roads continue south to Mortlake and Kew.
In Castelnau there are early 19th-century houses standing back from the road behind well-wooded gardens. An interesting old house, called Milbourne House, stands on the Green. It seems probable that it took its name from the family of Melbourne or Milbourne who held the manor of Esher Watevile in Emleybridge Hundred. In the church there is a brass to the memory of William Milbourne dated 1415. Special interest attaches to this house, for it was for some time the residence of Henry Fielding. It is now occupied by Mrs. Gray.
Another house which used to stand near Barn Elms was occupied at the end of the 17th century by Jacob Tonson the bookseller. Here were held the meetings of the celebrated Kitcat Club, for whose use Tonson added a gallery to his house. This was hung with portraits painted by Kneller of all the members of the club, and in 1814 this house was still standing, the vacant places where the pictures had hung were easily discernible, and the names of the originals, Addison and the rest, remained underneath. It was then, however, in a state of ruin, and soon after was pulled down, the pictures having been removed long before to Bayfordbury in Hertfordshire.
Adjoining the churchyard on the west are the well-wooded rectory gardens. The rectory is an 18th-century three-story brick building of no great interest, except that it contains a fine oak staircase of the period, with carved spandrel steps and twisted balusters.
To the east of the church stands the ‘Homestead,’ an 18th-century two-story brick house, having an enriched wooden cornice, a tile roof and red brick dressings to the windows. The entrance doorway is of two Doric pilasters carrying an entablature. The house stands well back from the roadway behind a row of beech trees, and is entered through a gateway standing between two brick piers surmounted by vases.
Lower down the road towards the river, standing opposite each other at the corners of Grange Road, are Frog Hall and The Grange, two brick Georgian houses. They are both two-story buildings, and have dormers in their roofs and red brick dressings to the windows. The latter has a bracketed wooden cornice, and has been much enlarged in recent times.
The Sun Inn, opposite the pond, is a building of about the same date, as are many of the houses in the High Street and the terrace overlooking the river. The ‘Bull’s Head’ and the ‘White Hart’ are old riverside inns. Near the former was established the Lyric Club, but the site is now occupied by small houses. Of modern houses Mill Hill is the residence of Mrs. Eykyn; the Manor House was that of the late Colonel Barrington-Foote.
Barnes Common lies to the south of the parish, and contains about 126 acres. Formerly the townships of Barnes and Putney both used this common, but in 1589 they quarrelled over it, and the men of Barnes refused to allow the men of Putney to use the common and impounded their cattle which they found on it. An attempt was made in 1802 to hold a fair on the common in place of the one that had been prohibited at Mortlake, but the magistrates would not allow it.
The common used to be very swampy, and it was then a favourite haunt of naturalists. But about thirty years ago it was drained, and its condition was greatly improved. Since that time it has been planted with trees, and it is naturally very fertile in furze, broom, briar and heath. It was preserved for public use under the Metropolitan Commons Acts of 1866 and 1869. The urban district council of Barnes now has the management of it, but the rights of the lord of the manor are reserved to the Dean and canons of St. Paul’s.
Market gardening is carried on in the fields by the river, but modern houses are encroaching in this direction every year. During the last century the population increased very rapidly, as Barnes became a residential suburb of London.
The new ecclesiastical parish of Holy Trinity was formed in 1881. The church of St. Michael and All Angels, consecrated in 1892, is a chapel of ease to the parish church. A Baptist chapel was built in 1868. There is a Wesleyan chapel on Barnes Green, and there are two mission halls in the parish. The cemetery with a chapel on the common was opened in 1855.
On Barnes Green is a school for girls and infants, built in 1850. Westfield Boys’ School was built in 1870 and enlarged in 1878 and 1892. Westfield Girls’ School was built in 1880 for girls and infants, and an infants’ school was built in 1904. Castelnau Girls and Infants’ School was built in 1883 and enlarged in 1891.
Churches
The parish church of ST. MARY, Barnes, dates from early in the 13th century, but of this building very little remains and it has been so much restored and altered as to be almost unrecognizable. The church at present consists of nave and chancel with north and south aisles, north vestry and south-west tower. In the 13th century the church consisted of an unaisled nave and chancel and in the later part of the 16th century a western tower was added. The next addition appears to have been made late in the 18th century, when a nave and chancel were built to the north of the existing one, the old nave serving as a south aisle, while in 1852 the church was restored and enlarged, and in 1907 the west wall of the nave was rebuilt, a north aisle and vestry erected and the whole church renovated.
The registers previous to 1813 are in three volumes: (1) all entries from 1538 to 1699; (2) all entries from 1700, baptisms and burials to 1812, marriages stopping at 1753; (3) marriages from 1754 to 1812.
The church of HOLY TRINITY was built in 1868 in rather poor 13th-century style, and is a plain rectangular building, consisting of a wide aisle-less nave with chancel, which slightly projects on the east and opens into a vestry on the north and into the organ chamber on the south, both of which project a little beyond the walls of the nave. It is built of Kentish rag, with stone quoins and dressings, and is roofed with purple slates. The principal entrance is in the west front, and is of two doorways with a central stone column; while over is a large wheel window under a pointed arch, the jambs of which are continued down, serving for the doorway also. At the north-west corner is an octagonal bell turret having a pyramidal stone roof, supported by an open arched arcade of eight columns.
The nave is of five bays, lighted on the north and south by single lancet windows, and has an open steep-pitched roof, the principals of which are carried on carved corbels, the walls on the outside being buttressed. The east window is of three lancets under an arched head. The church stands back from the road in a churchyard, which is not used as a burial ground.
The church of ST. MICHAEL AND ALL ANGELS is a fine red brick building with a tile roof, erected in 1892 in French Romanesque style to take the place of a temporary iron church built in 1878. It consists of an apsidal chancel, with a wide and lofty nave lighted by a clearstory, an apsidal north chapel, south organ chamber and vestry, north and south aisles and a baptistery at the west end of the nave.
The quire is raised above the general floor level of the church and projects into the nave. At the east end of the north aisle is an apsidal chapel having a vaulted wooden ceiling. From the apse at the east end of the chancel an arcade of pillars having carved stone capitals and red sandstone shafts carrying pointed red brick arches divides the church into six bays, the easternmost one being taken up by the quire, while from the abaci of the capitals slender attached shafts run up and take the roof principals. The inside walls of the church are treated in red and yellow brickwork. The clearstory is lighted by pairs of red brick lancet windows, as are also the aisles. The principal entrances are at the west end in the north and south walls of the aisles, while at the west end of the nave is a semi-circular bay used as a baptistery, the main wall of the nave over being carried by two columns similar to those in the nave arcade.
Charities
In 1653 Edward Rose, citizen of London, left £20 for the purchase of land, the rent to be applied to keeping up palings round his tomb and rose trees upon it, the surplus to be given to the poor.
In 1726 Mrs. Diana Savage left £50 for the poor; in 1730 Mr. Peter Marquet left £50; in 1774 Mr. Edward Byfield left £20; in 1778 Mr. Nathan Sprigg left £25; in 1787 Sir Richard Hoare left £20.
In 1804 Mrs. Mary Wright left £500 for the poor, subject to a charge for repairing her family vault.
There are further benefactions by Mr. Franks for bread and clothing and for Sunday schools; by J. and E. Biggs, about 1838 and 1840 respectively, of £15 and £7 8s. 6d. a year for the poor and Sunday schools; by Mr. Sampayo in 1859 for the poor, subject to repair of a tomb; by Mr. Sirry in 1880; by two members of the family of Bailey, by wills proved in 1882 and 1892, for the Working Men’s Institute and for the poor; and by Mr. Hedgman for clothing or otherwise aiding children to attend school, the last producing £95 16s. 4d. a year. Smith’s Charity is also distributed as in other Surrey parishes. The total of the charities now amounts to £1,282 3s. 1d. a year.
Source: A History of the County of Surrey: Volume 4, ed. H E Malden; Westminster [A. Constable], 1912
The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870
BARNES, a parish in Richmond district, Surrey; on the Richmond railway and the river Thames, 7 miles WSW of Waterloo Bridge station, London. It has a station on the railway; and it contains the village of Barnes and the hamlet of Barnes-Elms or Barn-Elms, both of which have post offices under Mortlake, London, S. W. Acres, 1,051; of which 115 are water. Real property, £18,738. Pop., 2,359. Houses, 414.
The manor was given by King Athelstane to the canons of St. Paul’s, London; and was then and afterwards called Berne. A tract in the N, 1½ mile long, is engirt by a semi-circular sweep of the Thames.
Barnes common, contiguous to this on the S, comprises about 500 acres, and lies lower than the level of the Thames’ spring tide.
Barnes terrace is a pleasant range of houses, chiefly let to summer sojourners.
Barn-Elms House was the residence of Sir Francis Walsingham, visited by Queen Elizabeth; afterwards the residence of Heydegger, George II.’s master of the revels, visited by the king; afterwards the property of Sir R. Hoare, the antiquary; and now chiefly a modern mansion, belonging to the family of Chapman.
A house in the vicinity, the “queen’s dairy,” was the residence of the celebrated bookseller Jacob Tonson, and the meeting place of the Kitcat club, adorned with portraits of the members, painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller. This house has gone to ruin; but the portraits have been preserved, and are now at Bayfordbury near Hertford.
Cowley, the poet, Fielding, the novelist, and Handel, the composer, were residents of Barnes; Bishop Wilson was for some time rector; and Sir William Bliyard, the surgeon, was a native. The duel between the Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Shrewsbury, in January 1667-8, was fought near Barn-Elms; and the assassination of the count and the countess D’Antraigues, in 1812, was done in the parish.
A suspension bridge, 750 feet long, takes a thoroughfare hence across the Thames to Hammersmith; and a three-arched iron bridge, each arch 100 feet in span, takes across a loop-line of railway from the Barnes station toward the Windsor railway near Hounslow.
The living is a rectory in the diocese of London. Value, £375. Patrons, the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s. The church was built in 1189, and looks to be mainly early English, but has been rendered uninteresting by numerous alterations. A recess, with rose-bushes on its S exterior, marks the grave of Edward Rose, a citizen of London, who died in 1653, leaving a bequest of £20 to the poor of the parish, on condition that his monumental tablet should be kept in repair, and have rose-bushes trained around it.
A small chapel, of recent erection, stands at Castlenau, built and endowed by Major Boilean; and is served by a curate, with salary of £100. Charities, £43.
Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].
Parish Records
FamilySearch
Maps
OS Grid Reference: TQ2249776533 (all-numeric format: 522498 176534)
Administration
- County: Surrey
- Civil Registration District: Richmond (Surrey)
- Probate Court: Pre-1846 – Court of the Peculiar of the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Deaneries of the Arches, Croydon, and Shoreham, Post-1845 – Court of the Bishop of London (Episcopal Consistory)
- Diocese: Pre-1846 – Winchester, Post-1845 – London
- Rural Deanery: Pre-1846 – Croydon, 1846-1861 – None, Post-1860 – Barnes and Hammersmith
- Poor Law Union: Richmond
- Hundred: Brixton
- Province: Canterbury