Beddington, Surrey
Historical Description
Beddington, a village and a parish in Surrey. The village stands on the river Wandle, about ½ mile from Waddon station on the L.B. & S.C.R., and 2½ miles W of Croydon. The parish includes also the hamlet of Wallington and the manor of Bandon. There is a post, money order, and telegraph office. Acreage, 3128; population of the civil parish, 2607; of the ecclesiastical, 3217. The manor belonged to the Carews from 1360 till 1860. Beddington House, now the Female Orphan Ayslum, is chiefly a brick edifice of 1709, but includes a great hall, with very rich open roof, visited by Queen Elizabeth, and contained interesting portraits, a curious trophy of arms, and an elaborately formed door-lock. An orangery here, destroyed in 1739, sprang from pips imported by Sir Francis Carew, the brother-in-law of Sir Walter Raleigh, the first pips planted in England. At Woodcote, in the southern part of the parish, many Roman remains have been found. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Rochester; net value, £895 with residence. The church shows Norman traces; was founded before the Conquest, and rebuilt of flint in the time of Richard I.; was renovated and extended, at a cost of £3000, in 1850; and was again repaired in 1869. The district chapelry of Holy Trinity, Waldon, and Wallington is a separate charge, formed in 1867.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
| Ancient County | Surrey | |
| Ecclesiastical parish | Beddington St. Mary | |
| Hundred | Wallington | |
| Poor Law union | Croydon |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Cemeteries
The cemetery at Bandon Hill was opened in 1899 for the parishes of Beddington, Coulsdon and Wallington, at a cost of £17,500, and is 11 acres in extent and has a mortuary chapel; it is under the control of the Croydon Rural District Council.
Church Records
The register dates from the year 1538.
Ancestry.co.uk, in association with Surrey History Centre, have images of the Parish Registers for Surrey online.
Churches
Church of England
St. Mary (parish church)
The church of St. Mary, of the 14th century, is of flint, and has a tower containing a clock and 10 bells: a fine screen of oak divides the chancel and nave, and there is an Elizabethan pulpit, some stalls with curious misereres, and a Saxon font, besides many memorials of the Carew family, and others to the Chapman, Greenhill and Gee families: there are thirteen stained windows, one of which was inserted in 1874 as a memorial to Samuel Wilberforce D.D. bishop of Winchester (1869-73): the church was restored in 1852, and a north aisle added at a cost of £3,000; in 1869 other improvements were made, at a cost of about £10,000: there are 600 sittings.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Beddington from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Beddington (St. Mary))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Surrey is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Beddington are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Surrey papers online:
Parochial History
By an Order in Council gazetted May 12, 1911, part of the ecclesiastical parish of Beddington, containing at the 1911 census a population of 1,905, was taken to form the ecclesiastical parish of St. Mark, Woodcote, Purley.
Visitations Heraldic
The Visitation of Surrey, 1662-1668 is available on the Heraldry page.