Keysoe Bedfordshire Family History Guide

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Keysoe is an Ancient Parish in the county of Bedfordshire.

Parish church: St. Mary

Parish registers begin:

  • Parish registers: 1735
  • Bishop’s Transcripts: 1602

Nonconformists include: Baptist

Adjacent Parishes

1920 BROOK END Village
1920 BROOK END Village

Keysoe Parish Registers

Search online registers of baptisms, marriages, banns and burials including digitised images of original records and registers and indexed transcriptions.

Baptism Records

These records include indexed transcriptions of parish register baptisms.

Keysoe, Bedfordshire Baptisms, 1602-1890

Marriage and Banns Records

These records include indexed transcriptions of parish register marriages and banns.

Keysoe, Bedfordshire Marriages, 1604-1936

Parish History

The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870

KEYSOE, a village and a parish in the district and county of Bedford. The village stands 4 miles SSW of Kimbolton, and 5½ ENE of Sharnbrook r. station; was anciently called Caissot; is a very scattered place, connected at the ends with Keysoe-Row and Brook-End; and has a post office under St. Neots.

The parish comprises 3,564 acres. Real property, £4,023. Pop., 867. Houses, 186. The property is subdivided. The principal manor belongs to John S. Crawley, Esq. A broken piece of ground in the NE is thought to have been the site of a Romano-British town.

The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Ely. Value, £225. Patron, Trinity College, Cambridge. The church is decorated and later English, in good condition; consists of nave, N aisle, and chancel, with W tower and spire; and contains an early English font and a piscina.

There are Baptist chapels at Keysoe-Row and Brook-End, and a national school.

Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].

A Topographical Dictionary of England 1848

KEYSOE (St. Mary), a parish, in the hundred of Stodden, union and county of Bedford, 4 miles (S. S. W.) from Kimbolton; containing 757 inhabitants.

The parish is intersected by the road from Bedford to Kimbolton, and comprises by measurement 3564 acres, of which 2200 are arable, 900 pasture and meadow, and 350 woodland, chiefly of oak: the surface is varied. Limestone is quarried for the roads.

The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king’s books at £8; net income, £150; patrons and impropriators, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge. The tithes were commuted for land and a money payment in 1803: the glebe comprises 166 acres. The church is chiefly later English, with some remains of the Norman and decorated styles; it has a lofty and handsome spire, and contains a curious Roman font with a Norman-French inscription.

Here are two places of worship for Baptists.

In a field in the parish, still called “Cromwell’s Close,” Cromwell, it is said, for a time encamped. On the glebe land is a strong chalybeate spring.

Source: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis 1848

Historical Maps

OS Grid Reference: TL0752462723 (all-numeric format: 507524 262723)

View detailed 19th-century Ordnance Survey maps from the National Library of Scotland Maps – includes OS 25 inch 1892-1918 maps, a vast range of other historical OS maps and land use maps. These maps reveal old street layouts, parish boundaries, and landmarks long since vanished.

Administration

  • County: Bedfordshire
  • Civil Registration District: Bedford
  • Probate Court: Court of the Archdeaconry of Bedford
  • Diocese: Pre-1837 – Lincoln, Post-1836 – Ely
  • Rural Deanery: Eaton
  • Poor Law Union: Bedford
  • Hundred: Stodden
  • Province: Canterbury