West Woodhay, Berkshire
Historical Description
Woodhay, West, a parish in Berks, on the Hampshire border, 3 miles S by W of Kintbury station on the G.W.R., and 6 SE of Hungerford. Post town, Newbury; money order and telegraph office, Kintbury. Acreage, 1432; population, 124. The manor, with the Manor House, belongs to the Cole family. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Oxford; gross value, £201 with residence. The church, built in 1882, is a building in the Early Pointed style, consisting of chancel, nave, S porch, and a square tower.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
| Ancient County | Berkshire | |
| Ecclesiastical parish | West Woodhay St. Lawrence | |
| Hundred | Kintbury-Eagle | |
| Poor Law union | Hungerford |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The register dates from the year 1635.
Churches
Church of England
St. Lawrence (parish church)
The parish church of St. Lawrence was built in 1882-3, at a cost of £3,000, by the late W. H. Cole esq. to replace the former church, a heavy brick structure erected in 1717, close to the manor house, on the site of the original church, of which, however, no trace remained except some few architectural fragments and a quantity of encaustic tiles of an earlier building; the tiles are now in the west wall of the tower of the present church, which stands about a quarter of a mile from the manor house, is a building of flint with Bath stone dressings in the Lancet style, from the designs of Sir A. W. Blomfield A.R.A., F.S.A. and consists of chancel, nave, south porch and a tower on the south side, with short spire and containing 2 bells: the chancel has a credence and sedile; all the windows in the church are stained, the east window being from a design by the late Sir E. Burne-Jones bart.; others are memorials erected in 1890 to William Henry Cole: over the communion table are three beautiful oak carvings, the work of Goyer of Louvain: there are brasses to William Henry Cole, d. 1889; and to Major-Gen. Sir Howard Crawfurd Elphinstone V.C., K.C.B., C.M.G. who was drowned at sea, off Ushant, March 8, 1890: in 1894 the nave was lengthened westward 12 feet and a vestry and organ chamber built and a stained west window erected in memory of Major William Utting Cole, who died of cholera in 1892 at Murree in India: and in 1902-3 a carved oak screen was added and the church reseated in oak: there are now 120 sittings.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
West Woodhay was in Hungerford Registration District from 1837 to 1974
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for West Woodhay from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Woodhay, West (St. Lawrence))
- Kelly's Directory of Berkshire, 1899
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Berkshire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of West Woodhay 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 Berkshire papers online:
Visitations Heraldic
The Visitations of Berkshire 1532, 1566, and 1665-6 is available online.