Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire Family History Guide

Chalfont St Peter is an Ancient Parish in the county of Buckinghamshire. Gerrard’s Cross is a chapelry of Chalfont St Peter.

Parish church: St. Peter

Parish registers begin:

• Parish registers: 1538
• Bishop’s Transcripts: 1600

Nonconformists include: Independent/Congregational and Particular Baptist.

Adjacent Parishes

• Beaconsfield
• Chalfont St Giles
• Chenies
• Chorley Wood Christ Church, Hertfordshire
• Gerrard’s Cross
• Amersham with Coleshill
• Hedgerley
• West Hyde, Hertfordshire
• Farnham Royal
• Seer Green

Parish Registers

Marriages at Chalfont St Peter 1538 to 1812 Buckinghamshire Parish Registers. Marriages Edited by W. P. W. Phillimore and Thomas Gurney. Volume 4. – This book is a free download from Parishmouse

Parish History

The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870

CHALFONT-ST. PETER, a village and a parish in Amersham district, Bucks. The village stands on the Misbourn rivulet, 5 miles SSE of Amersham, and 6¼ E by N of Woburn-Green r. station; is a seat of petty sessions; and has a post-office under Slough.

The parish comprises 4,717 acres. Real property, £7,335. Pop., 1,344. Houses, 303. The property is divided among a few. Chalfont House was built by General Churchill, the brother-in-law of Horace Walpole; owed much of its original character to Walpole’s taste; but has been much altered and improved; and is now the seat of J. Hibbert, Esq. A house called the Grange was for some time the residence of Judge Jeffreys.

The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford. Value, £731. Patron, St. John’s College, Oxford. The church is a brick edifice of 1726, highly improved by Street in 1854; and contains three good brasses. The p. curacy of Gerrard’s Cross is a separate benefice. There are a Baptist chapel, a national school, and charities £25.

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

A Topographical Dictionary of England 1848

CHALFONT (St. Peter’s), a parish, in the union of Amersham, hundred of Burnham, county of Buckingham, 1½ mile (N. N. E.) from Gerrard’s-Cross; containing 1483 inhabitants. The rectory, the manor, and 1147 acres of land, belonged to Missenden Abbey; and were sold, at the Dissolution, to Sir Robert Drury and others, from whom they passed into the Bulstrode family.

The parish is intersected by a tributary stream of the Colne, called Missbourne, upon which there is a silk-mill, affording employment to about fifty women. It comprises about 4564 acres, of which 4100 are arable, 292 wood, and 178 uninclosed common: the surface is irregular; the soil on the higher grounds is gravel, with a clayey tenacious subsoil, and the lower grounds are covered with a thin coat of alluvial bog earth. The petty sessions for the division are holden here.

The living is a vicarage, endowed with part of the rectorial tithes, and valued in the king’s books at £15. 17. 1.; net income, £600; patrons, the President and Fellows of St. John’s College, Oxford. The remainder of the great tithes belongs to three proprietors of land. The church, rebuilt in 1726, is a plain brick edifice, with an embattled tower seventy feet high, containing a peal of six well-toned bells; the quoins and window and door cases, of stone, were brought from the ruins of the Roman station of Verulam, now St. Alban’s.

Source: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis 1848

Historical Maps

Old maps of Britain and Europe from A Vision of Britain Through Time

Administration

• County: Buckinghamshire
• Civil Registration District: Amersham
• Probate Court: Court of the Archdeaconry of Buckingham
• Diocese: Pre-1845 – Lincoln, Post-1844 – Oxford
• Rural Deanery: Pre-1845 – None, Post-1844 – Burnham
• Poor Law Union: Amersham
• Hundred: Burnham
• Province: Canterbury