Priors Hardwick Warwickshire Family History Guide

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Priors Hardwick is an Ancient Parish in the county of Warwickshire. Priors Marston is a chapelry of Priors Hardwick. 

Alternative names: Hardwick Priors

Parish church: St. Mary

Parish registers begin:

  • Parish registers: 1661
  • Bishop’s Transcripts: 1662

Nonconformists include:

Adjacent Parishes

Priors Hardwick Parish Registers

Baptism, Marriage and Burial Records

These records include images of Church of England parish registers of baptism, marriage, and burial records.

Priors Hardwick, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1812-1922

Priors Hardwick Marriages 1662 to 1812 Warwickshire Parish Registers Marriages Edited by W. P. W. Phillimore and J. Harvey Bloom. Volume 1 – This book is a free download from Parishmouse

Death and Burial Records

These records include images of Church of England parish registers of deaths and burial records.

Priors Hardwick, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-1997

Parish History

The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870

HARDWICK-PRIORS, a parish in Southam district, Warwickshire; adjacent to Northamptonshire and to the Oxford canal, 4 miles NE of Fenny Compton r. station, and 5 SE by S of Southam. Post town, Priors Marston, under Daventry. Acres, 1,600. Real property, £2,901. Pop., 323. Houses, 65. The property is subdivided. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Worcester. Value, £240. Patron, Earl Spencer. The church is early and decorated English, in tolerable condition.

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

A Topographical Dictionary of England 1848

HARDWICK, PRIORS (St. Mary), a parish, in the union of Southam, hundred of Knightlow, S. division of the county of Warwick, 5¾ miles (S. E.) from Southam; containing 280 inhabitants.

This was one of twenty-four towns given by Earl Leofric, of Mercia, to the monks of Coventry, in the time of Edward the Confessor. After the Dissolution it came to the Knightleys, who alienated the estate to Sir John Spencer, and Edward Griffin, attorney-general to Queen Elizabeth: it subsequently devolved to Lord Spencer.

The parish is bounded on the south and east by a portion of Northamptonshire, and comprises by measurement 1448 acres, of a highly productive soil. Stone of very durable quality is quarried for the roads and for other uses, and facilities of conveyance are afforded by the Oxford canal, the rateable annual value of which property in the parish is £626.

The living is a vicarage, with the perpetual curacies of Priors-Marston and Lower Shuckburgh annexed, valued in the king’s books at £23. 16. 0½.; net income, £480; patron, Earl Spencer, who, with the Vicar and James Beck, Esq., is impropriator: the glebe comprises 100 acres. The church is an ancient structure, in the early and decorated English styles; the chancel contains some curious details.

Source: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis 1848

Maps

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: Warwickshire
  • Civil Registration District: Southam
  • Probate Court: Pre-1837 – Court of the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry (Episcopal Consistory), Post-1836 – Court of the Bishop of Worcester (Episcopal Consistory)
  • Diocese: Worcester
  • Rural Deanery: Stonleigh
  • Poor Law Union: Southam
  • Hundred: Kington
  • Province: Canterbury