Astwood, Buckinghamshire
Historical Description
Astwood, a parish in Bucks, on the verge of the county, 5½ miles ENE of Newport-Pagnell, and 6 SE of Olney station on the M.R. Post town, Newport-Pagnell; money order and telegraph office, Cranfield. Acreage, 1281; population, 187. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford; net yearly value, £139. Patron, the Lord Chancellor. The church is an ancient building of stone, in the Perpendicular and Decorated styles.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
Ancient County | Buckinghamshire | |
Ecclesiastical parish | Astwood St. Peter | |
Hundred | Newport | |
Poor Law union | Newport-Pagnell |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The parish register dates from the year 1666
Churches
Church of England
St. Peter (parish church)
The parish church of St. Peter is an ancient building of stone, consisting of chancel, nave of four bays, with clerestory, south aisle, modern south porch and an embattled western tower of the Decorated period containing 3 bells and a clock: the piers and arches of the nave are also Decorated, but the clerestory and roof Perpendicular: the font, an Early English work, has a plain octagonal bowl supported on a square pedestal having four circular shafts with moulded caps: there are three fine brasses, with effigies, to Thomas Chibnale and Emma and Alice his wives, dated 1534: there are three marble mural tablets to the Lowndes family, and one to Samuel Cranmer, 1640: within the chancel rails are four black marble slabs, three to the Lowndes family and one to Thomas Layton esq, 1723: there is a marble tablet erected in memory of the three men of this parish who lost their lives in the Great War, 1914-18: opposite the porch is the base of an ancient stone cross: there are 120 sittings.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Astwood was in Newport Pagnell Registration District from 1837 to 1935
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Astwood from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Astwood (St. Peter))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Buckinghamshire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Astwood 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 Buckinghamshire papers online:
Visitations Heraldic
A full transcript of the Visitation of Buckinghamshire, 1634 is online