Wyddiall or Widdial, Hertfordshire

Historical Description

Wyddiall or Widdial, a village and a parish in Herts, the former 1½ mile NE of Buntingford, which town is partly within this parish, and has a station on the G.E.R. Post town and money order and telegraph office, Buntingford. Acreage of the civil parish, 1542; population, 282; of the ecclesiastical, 241. Wyddial Hall, which stands in a park of about 100 acres, is a seat of the Heaton-Ellis family, who own the manor and most of the land. The NE entrance to the parish is called Cave Gate, from its being near the former entrance to a subterranean passage from Anstey Castle, which once stood here. The living is a rectory in the diocese of St Albans; net value, £203 with residence. The church is a building partly ancient and partly modern, consisting of chancel, nave, N aisle and chapel, S porch, and an embattled western tower. It has some good stained windows, some old monuments and brasses, and two Jacobean screens.

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.

Civil Registration

For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Wyddiall or Widdial from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Wyddiall (St. Giles))

Land and Property

A full transcript of the Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Hertfordshire is online.

Maps

Online maps of Wyddiall or Widdial 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 Hertfordshire newspapers online:

• Hertford Mercury and Reformer
• Herts Guardian, Agricultural Journal, and General Advertiser
• Watford Observer

Visitations Heraldic

The Visitations of Hertfordshire, 1572 and 1634. Edited by Walter C. Metcalfe, F.S.A. is available on the Heraldry page.