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Brent Pelham

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Church History

There is a picture (73 kbytes) of the parish church of St. Mary, Brent Pelham; supplied by Ian Rose.

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Church Records

The Parish Registers for the periods:-

  • Baptisms - 1539-1932
  • Marriages - 1551-1836
  • Burials - 1539-1812
  • Bishop's Transcripts - 1829-1830

are deposited at Hertfordshire Record Office, County Hall, Hertford, SG13 8DE. [D/P77]

Entries from the Marriage Registers for the period 1539-1837 are included in The Allen Index at Hertfordshire Record Office.

Transcripts of the parish registers for the period 1539-1932 are deposited at the Society of Genealogists, 14 Charterhouse Buildings, Goswell Road, LONDON, EC1M 7BA.

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Description & Travel

"Called Burnt Pelham after a 12th-century fire destroyed the village. The Hall's grand William and Mary front (chimney-stacks betray earlier origin) rules this place. Its level lawns and brick walls face the hill-top church, while cottages and farms litter lanes sloping mildly north, south and west.
"The 14th-century St. Mary's church, heavily restored and generally disappointing, contains one exciting treasure. An antiquarian has fleshed out the legend of local dragon slayer Piers Shonks by fixing his name and a date (1086) to a most unusual black marble tomb slab of the 13th century. Symbols of the four Evangelists - angel, eagle, lion, and bull - are carved in relief around a dragon's mouth, symbol of militant Christianity. Surely a fanciful attribution, and yet a huge skeleton has been recovered from this very tomb!
"Shonks Moat (1m. E.) is a well-defined ditch, now only partly water-filled, with a medieval fish-pond and traces of an earlier moat near by. Samuel Palmer landscape of ancient woods and tracks through swaying corn north of here."
[From Hertfordshire (a Shell Guide), R. M. Healey , Faber & Faber, London, 1982]
You can see pictures of Brent Pelham which are provided by:

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Gazetteers

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Maps

You can see maps centred on OS grid reference TL433307 (Lat/Lon: 51.956329, 0.083995), Brent Pelham which are provided by: