Wanstead Essex Family History Guide

Wanstead is an Ancient Parish in the county of Essex.

Other places in the parish include: Snaresbrook.

Alternative names:

Parish church:

Parish registers begin:

Parish registers: 1640
Bishop’s Transcripts: 1813

Nonconformists include: Society of Friends/Quaker

Table of Contents

Adjacent Parishes

Parish History

Wanstead

The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870

WANSTEAD, a parish, with W. village and Snaresbrook hamlet, in West Ham district, Essex; on the river Roding, 1½ mile NW of Ilford r. station, and 7 NE of London. It has a post-office under London NE, and a K. police station.

Acres, 2,004. Real property, £11,993. Pop. in 1851, 2,207; in 1861, 2,742, of whom 671 were in the Infant orphan asylum. Houses, 346. The property is subdivided.

The manor belonged, in the late Saxon times, to St. Paul’s, London; was held, at Domesday, by R. Fitz-Brien; and passed to the Huntercombes, the Herons, the Crown, Lord Rich, the Earl of Leicester, the Mildmays, the Childs, the Tylneys, and the Wellesleys.

The manorial mansion was restored by the Earl of Leicester; gave entertainment in 1578 to Elizabeth, in 1607 to James I.; was rebuilt in 1715 by Sir R. Child; became the residence of some of the Bourbon princes in their exile; and was taken down by the Earl of Mornington, in 1823. A Roman pavement and other Roman antiquities were found in the park in 1735. There are numerous good residences.

The living is a rectory in the diocese of Rochester. Value, £616. Patron, Earl Cowley. The church was rebuilt in 1790; and has a Doric portico, surmounted by a cupola.

A chapel of ease was built in 1861, and enlarged in 1867; and it acquired a tower and spire in 1868.

An Independent chapel was built in 1865.

There are a national school, a young girls’ protection society, a merchant seamen’s orphan asylum, the infant orphan asylum at Snaresbrook, the Weavers’ alms houses, and charities £66.

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

Snaresbrook

The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870

SNARESBROOK, a village in Wanstead parish, Essex; in Epping forest, adjacent to the Ongar railway, 7½ miles NE of St. Paul’s, London. It has a station, with telegraph, on the railway.

The Infant orphan asylum, for 700 children, and the Merchant Seamen’s orphan asylum, for 130 boys and 75 girls, are here; the former built in 1843, the latter in 1862-3. The latter stands on a plot of 20 acres; exhibits a splendour of architecture almost palatial; and is capable of such extension as to accommodate 400 children.

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