Waltham St Lawrence, Berkshire
Historical Description
Waltham St Lawrence, a parish, with a village, in Berks, 3 miles ENE of Twyford station on the G.W.R., and 6 SW from Maidenhead. It has a post office under Twyford; telegraph office, Shurlock Row. Acreage, 3640; population, 851. There is a parish council of seven members. It formerly had a fair on 10 Aug. A Roman camp is at Castle Acre, and Roman coins, urns, and other relics have there been found. Billingbear Park is a fine Elizabethan mansion of red brick standing in a well timbered park of about 400 acres. Southlake or Shurlock Street is a division of the parish about 1¼ mile SW of the village. It has a chapel of ease to the parish church. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford; net value, £345. Patron, Lord Braybrooke. The church, a building of brick and flint covered with stucco in the Norman and Gothic styles, contains some good stained windows and some ancient and interesting tombs and monuments. There is a Primitive Methodist chapel.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
| Ancient County | Berkshire | |
| Hundred | Wargrave | |
| Poor Law union | Cookham |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The register dates from the year 1559.
Churches
Church of England
St. Lawrence (parish church)
The church of St. Lawrence is an edifice of brick and flint covered with stucco, in the Norman and Gothic styles, and consists of chancel, nave of four bays, aisles, south porch and an embattled western tower containing 6 bells and a clock, with a small turret at the south-west angle containing a staircase leading to the belfry and top of the tower; in the north-east corner is a monument over the burial place of the Nevill family, including one in tolerable preservation to Sir Henry Nevill kt. ob. 13th Jan. 1593, his wives, Frances (Thwaites) and Elizabeth (Gresham), ob. 6th November, 1593, and Elizabeth, his eldest daughter: and another to Elizabeth, second wife of John (Wallop), 1st Earl of Portsmouth and relict of Henry Grey esq. (formerly Nevill), of Billingbere; she died in 1762; and two others also of some interest: the stone reredos exhibits in three compartments, "The Descent from the Cross," the "Descent of the Holy Spirit," and "St. Paul preaching at Athens": the stained east window is a memorial, and was given by a former vicar, the Rev. E. J. Parker B.D. and his sister; another memorial window, a copy from a beautiful window in Ratisbon Cathedral, was presented by Mr. Hanson: the oak screen embodies the old 14th century carving found in the church, and the pulpit bears the date 1619: the church was restored and a south porch added in 1847 and was again restored in 1888, at a cost of £640; in 1894 an oak screen was erected across the tower arch, in memory of the late Henry Hewitt esq. by his widow, and 13 copper and iron hanging lamps were also placed in the church to the memory of the same gentleman, by the parishioners: there are 350 sittings.
Civil Registration
Waltham St. Lawrence was in Cookham Registration District from 1837 to 1896 and Maidenhead Registration District from 1896 to 1974
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Waltham St Lawrence from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Waltham St. Lawrence)
- Kelly's Directory of Berkshire, 1915
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Berkshire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Waltham St Lawrence 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.