Watchfield, Berkshire

Historical Description

Watchfield, a township in Shrivenham parish, Berks, 4¼miles SW by S of Great Faringdon, and 2 N by E from Shrivenham station on The G.W.R. Post town and money order and telegraph office, Shrivenham. Acreage, 1517; population, 376. There is a parish council consisting of five members. The manor belongs to the Bouveries and Viscount Barrington. The living is a chapelry, annexed to Shrivenham. The church is a small modern building of stone in the Early English and Decorated styles. 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.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Church Records

The register dates from the year 1858.

Churches

Church of England

Methodist

Civil Registration

Watchfield was in Faringdon Registration District from 1837 to 1937 and Wantage Registration District from 1937 to 1974

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Watchfield from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Watchfield)
• 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 Watchfield 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:

• Reading Mercury
• Windsor and Eton Express
• Berkshire Chronicle

Visitations Heraldic

The Visitations of Berkshire 1532, 1566, and 1665-6 is available online.