Castle Thorpe, Buckinghamshire
Historical Description
Castle-Thorpe, a parish in Bucks, on the verge of the county, the river Tove, with a station on the L & N.W.R., and 3½ miles NNE of Stony-Stratford, under which it has a post office; money order and telegraph office, Hans-lope. Acreage, 1372; population of the civil parish, 441; of the ecclesiastical, 1930. The ancient castle of the barony of Hanslope stood here, but is represented now by only a deep ditch and an artificial mound. The living is a chapelry annexed to the rectory of Hanslope, in the diocese of Oxford; joint gross yearly value, £127 with residence, in the gift of the Bishop of Oxford. The church is an old edifice, with low square tower, and has a monument of Judge Tyrrell, of the time of Charles II. There is also a Wesleyan chapel.
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 | Castle-Thorpe St. Simon and St. Jude | |
| 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 1562
Churches
Church of England
SS. Simon and Jude (parish church)
The parish church of SS. Simon and Jude stands within the enceinte of a large earthwork, consisting of a mount and bailey fortress, held in the days of King John by a Mauduit, from whom it was captured by Fulk de Brent during the Wars of the Barons: it is an ancient edifice of stone, in the Transitional and later styles, consisting of chancel, nave of three bays and aisles, west porch and a low embattled western tower with pinnacles, and containing one bell: the font is large and ancient, with two human heads at the two western corners, and there are sedilia and a piscina: in the chancel is a monument to Sir Thomas Tyrrell knt. a justice of the Common Pleas, who died 8 March, 1672, erected by his 3rd wife and widow, Dame Bridget (Harrington): there are 180 sittings.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Castle Thorpe was in Newport Pagnell Registration District from 1837 to 1935
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Castle Thorpe from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Castle-Thorpe (St. Simon and St. Jude))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Buckinghamshire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Castle Thorpe 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