Bexley, Kent

Historical Description

Bexley, a village and a parish in the union and county court district of Dartford, Kent. The village stands on the Cray river and on the S.E.R., 13 miles from London, and 5 W of Dartford, and once gave the title of Baron to the Vansittarts. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office. The civil parish includes Bexley-Heath and three hamlets. Acreage, 5328; population of the civil parish, 10,605; of the ecclesiastical, 3188. The manor belonged in the Saxon times to the see of Canterbury; was alienated by Henry VIII.; granted by James I. to Sir John Spielman; sold by Spielman to Camden the antiquary; and bequeathed by Camden to University College, Oxford, for maintaining a professorship of history. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Canterbury; net value, £120. The church is chiefly Early English, with later windows. It was carefully restored in 1882-83. The vicarage of Bexley-Heath and the vicarage of Lamorbey are separate benefices. There are Baptist, Methodist, and Congregational chapels. 150

Transcribed from The Comprehensive Gazetteer of England & Wales, 1894-5

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Ancient County	Kent
Ecclesiastical parish	Bexley St. Mary
Hundred	Lessness
Lathe	Sutton-at-Hone
Poor Law union	Dartford

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

Church Records

The register dates from the year 1528.

Findmypast have the following online for Bexley, St Mary the Virgin: baptisms 1722-1835, marriages 1565-1837, burials 1723-1848

Churches

Church of England

St. John the Evangelist, Parkhill

The church of St. John the Evangelist, Parkhill, in connection with St. Mary, Bexley, was erected in 1881-2, at a cost of upwards of £4,000, and consecrated in June, 1882; it is of Kentish ragstone, in the Gothic style, and has 600 sittings, 200 being free.

St. Mary (parish church)

The church of St. Mary is a structure of flint, in the Norman and Early English styles, and has a tower, with spire, containing a clock and 6 bells: there is a monument to Sir John Champneys, lord mayor of London, knighted 1533. d. 1556, with kneeling effigies of himself and his lady; to Sir Edward Brett kt. and to the families of Austen, Woolrych, Hereworth, Gerard, Styleman, and others, and brasses to Thomas Sparrow and to the Castellain family of Blendon: the church was restored in 1882-3, at a cost of about £4,000, and affords 450 sittings, 100 being free.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Bexley from the following:

Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Bexley (St. Mary))

Maps

Online maps of Bexley 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 Kent newspapers online:

Visitations Heraldic

The Visitation of Kent, 1619 is available on the Heraldry page, as is also The Visitation of Kent, 1663-68.

District	Bexley
County	Greater London
Region	London
Country	England
Postal district	DA5
Post Town	Bexley