Lavendon

The following reference sources have been used in the construction of this page, and may be referred to for further detail. Most if not all of these volumes are available in the Reference section of the County Library in Aylesbury.

"Buckinghamshire", E.S. Roscoe, London Methuen & Co Ltd, 1935.
"Buckinghamshire Contributions for Ireland 1642", Wilson J., 1983.
"Buckinghamshire Returns of the Census of Religious Worship 1851", Legg E. ed., 1991, ISBN 0 901198 27 7.
"Magna Britannia: Buckinghamshire", Lysons S. and Lysons D., 1806.
"The Place-Names of Buckinghamshire", Mawer A. and Stenton F.M., 1925.
"The Victoria History of the Counties of England: Buckinghamshire", Page W. ed., 1905-1928
"War Memorials and War Graves: Newport Hundred, Volume 1", Peter Quick.

• War memorials in Lavendon have been transcribed by Peter Quick, and published in a booklet entitled "War Memorials and War Graves: Newport Hundred, Volume 1", available from the Buckinghamshire Genealogical Society.
• War memorial details are also available online on the Roll of Honour web site.

In 1642 there were 61 people named in the tax returns for contributions for Ireland. Between them they were assessed at £11.19.6 of which sum Robert Eccleston esq and his son contributed £5.0.0

In 1798 the Posse Comitatus listed 122 men between the ages of 16 and 60 in Lavendon.

In the earliest government census of 1801, there were 544 inhabitants in 212 families living in 212 houses recorded in Lavendon.

* = No names were recorded in census documents from 1801 to 1831.
** = Census documents from 1911 to 2001 are only available in summary form. Names are witheld under the 100 year rule.

Microfilm copies of all census enumerators' notebooks for 1841 to 1891 are held at the Local Studies Libraries at Aylesbury and Milton Keynes, as well as centrally at the PRO. A table of 19th century census headcount by parish is printed in the VCH of Bucks, Vol.2, pp 96-101.

Availability of census transcripts and indexes.

• 1851 - Full transcripts and indexes for Buckinghamshire are available on CD-ROM, hard copy and microfiche from the Buckinghamshire Family History Society.
• 1861 - Available on CD-ROM with advanced search and mapping capabilities etc. from the Buckinghamshire Genealogical Society.
• 1881
  • Available on CD-ROM from the Church of the Latter Day Saints, as part of the National 1881 Census Index.
  • Available on CD-ROM for Buckinghamshire, with advanced search and mapping capabilities etc. from Drake Software.
• 1891 - Available on CD-ROM with advanced search and mapping capabilities etc. from the Buckinghamshire Genealogical Society.

• Abbots of Lavendon Abbey
• Vicars of the Parish Church of St Michael

Details of the stained glass in the church can be found on the following web sites (the site includes many photos):

• Buckinghamshire Stained Glass

The original copies of the parish registers for St Michael, Lavendon have been deposited in the Buckinghamshire Record Office in Aylesbury, and they hold the following years:

An ecclesiastical census was carried out throughout England on 30 March 1851 to record the attendance at all places of worship. These returns are in the Buckinghamshire Record Office and have been published by the Buckinghamshire Record Society (vol 27). The returns for Lavendon showed the following numbers:

• Buckinghamshire Church Photos by Kevin Quick.
• Buckinghamshire Records and Local Studies Service - large collection of old photos of Buckinghamshire

• Geograph
• Flickr

• Ask for a calculation of the distance from Lavendon to another place.

Lavendon was described in 1806 in "Magna Britannia" as follows:

LAVENDON, in the hundred and deanery of Newport, lies on the borders of Bedfordshire, nearly three miles north-east of Olney; it had formerly a market on Tuesdays, granted in 1248 to Paulinus Peyvre, together with a fair on the festival of the assumption of the Virgin Mary. The market has been long discontinued; a small fair is held annually on the Tuesday before Easter. In this parish was an abbey of Premonstratensian monks, founded in the reign of Henry II. by John de Bidun, a baron, in honour of St. John Baptist. Its revenues were estimated, when it was dissolved in the reign of Henry VIII. at 79 l. 13s. 8d. clear yearly value. The site, together with the abbey manor, was granted in 1544 to Sir Edmund Peckham, who had for some years been lessee under the crown, and afterwards to Sir Roland Heywood. About the year 1676, it was purchased by the father of Dr. Newton, founder of Hertford College, in Oxford, who made the site of the abbey his residence. There are no remains of the conventual buildings, which, by the report of the commissioners, appear to have been in ruins in 1534, before the monastery was dissolved. The Abbey-manor, or grange, is now the property of the Rev. Simon Adams, whose father, Knightly Adams esq. married Jane, the daughter and heir of Dr. Newton.

The Castle-manor is so called from a castle, which probably was the seat of the ancient baronial family of Bidun, by the whom the abbey was founded: it was afterwards successively in the Peyvres and Zouches; of the latter it was purchased in 1527, by Lord Mordaunt, whose descendant sold it, about the year 1630, to the Comptons: it is now the property of Farrer Grove Spurgeon Farrer esq. whose grandfather, William Farrer esq. purchased it of the Comptons. There is a farm-house on the site of the castle, of which there are no other remains than a moat, and some vestiges of buildings. It appears by an ancient institution to the vicarage of Lavendon, now in the registry of the bishop of Lincoln, that the castle was standing in the year 1232, since it is stated in the record of the institution, that the abbot of Lavendon was bound to provide a chaplain, to officiate in the chapel of St. Mary, in Lavendon-castle.

The manor of Uphoe, a hamlet of this parish, has been some time in the Farrer family, and is now the property of F.G.S. Farrer esq. The manor, or reputed manor of Snellson, another hamlet of this parish, on the confines of Bedfordshire, was sold by the Mordaunts, to the Comptons, of whom it was purchased by the father of Charles Chester esq. the present proprietor. The manor, or reputed manor of Addersey, in this parish, now the property of Philip Skeen esq. was purchased of Lord Hinchingbroke, (now Earl of Sandwich:) it had belonged some time before to the Earl of Halifax.

In the parish church is the monument of Dr. Newton above-mentioned, and memorials for others of his family. The parish of Lavendon has been inclosed by an act of parliament, passed in 1801, when an allotment of land was assigned to the vicar, in lieu of this vicarage, and a portion of the great tithes to which he was entitled: allotments were assigned also to the Earl of Dartmouth, Mr. Farrer, and Mr. Chester, in lieu of their several portions of tithes, which had formerly been appropriated to the abbey. The vicarage is in the gift of Gerard Noel esq. who inherited the advowson, with other estates from his uncle, the late Earl of Gainsborough.

You can see maps centred on OS grid reference SP917536 (Lat/Lon: 52.173051, -0.660499), Lavendon which are provided by:

• OpenStreetMap
• Google Maps
• StreetMap (Current Ordnance Survey maps)
• Bing (was Multimap)
• Old Maps Online
• National Library of Scotland (Old Ordnance Survey maps)
• Vision of Britain (Click "Historical units & statistics" for administrative areas.)
• English Jurisdictions in 1851 (Unfortunately the LDS have removed the facility to enable us to specify a starting location, you will need to search yourself on their map.)
• Magic (Geographic information) (Click + on map if it doesn't show)
• GeoHack (Links to on-line maps and location specific services.)

• All places within the same township/parish shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby townships/parishes shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby places shown on an Openstreetmap map.

The name Lavendon means 'Lafa's valley'.