Bierton, Buckinghamshire
Historical Description
Bierton, with Broughton and Burcott, a parish in Bucks, on the Aylesbury branch of the L. & N.W.R., near the Aylesbury Canal, 1½ mile NE of Aylesbury. It has a post office, of the name of Bierton, under Aylesbury, which is the money order and telegraph office. Acreage, 2477; population of the civil parish, 740; of the ecclesiastical with Quarrendon, 1034. The living is a vicarage, united with the vicarage of Quarrendon, in the diocese of Oxford; joint net yearly value, £309 with residence. Patrons, the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln. The church is a structure of the 12th century, with tower and spire; was restored in 1885 by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners; and contains a piscina and a curious monument of 1616 to Samuel Pope and his thirteen children. There are also Baptist and Wesleyan Methodist chapels and some small charities.
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 | Bierton St. James | |
Hundred | Aylesbury | |
Poor Law union | Aylesbury |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The parish register dates from the year 1560
Churches
Church of England
St. James (parish church)
The parish church of St. James is a cruciform structure, of local lias stone in mixed styles, erected about 1280, in the Early Decorated period, but very much altered in the Perpendicular period; it consists of chancel, nave, aisles, transepts, north porch and an embattled central tower, with small spire, and containing a clock and 6 bells, on the north side of the chancel is an aumbry with trefoiled arch, now used as a credence table, and on the south a piscina with plain shaft, and a good fluted basin: the arcades of the nave are Decorated, the east window Late Perpendicular: there is a plain Norman font with cable moulding, and a curious monument, the inscription on which states that it was erected and set vpp at the propper coste and charges of Mrs. Cæcily Bosse, the widdowe of the late Mr. Samvel Bosse, who died 21st December, 1616, and that he had nine sons and four daughters; the monument represented the deceased and his lady kneeling opposite each other, with their children in the same position, the sons behind the father and the daughter, behind the mother, on the pillar of the north transept are two oval shaped tablets to the Rev. Timothy Shaw, vicar of Bierton for 34 years, who died in 1786, and to his wife: the interior of the church was repaired and reseated and the gallery removed in 1852, and in 1885 the chancel was restored by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners: in 1926 the lady chapel was restored, the floor of the nave laid with wood blocks and the church reseated with chairs: in 1927 a new pulpit was set up, being a reproduction of the 17th century pulpit at Nether Winchendon, in 1929 the roof was partially restored: amongst the church plate is a rare and valuable 14th century paten: there are 150 sittings. In the churchyard, near the entrance, is a cross of grey Cornish granite, standing on a concrete base, and erected as a memorial to the men connected with the parish who lost their lives in the Great War, 1914-18; there are three steps at its base, on which are bronze tablets, bearing the names of the fallen.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Bierton with Broughton was in Aylesbury Registration District from 1837 to 1974
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Bierton from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Bierton (St. James))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Buckinghamshire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Bierton 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