Chelsfield, Kent

Historical Description

Chelsfield, a parish, with a village, in Kent, 6¼ miles SE of Bromley, with a station on the S.E.R., 16 miles from London. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office (S.O.) Acreage, 3378; population, 1122. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Canterbury; net value, £480 with residence. Patron, All Souls College, Oxford. The church is of different dates and in various styles of architecture. There is a Wesleyan chapel.

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	Chelsfield St. Mary
Hundred	Ruxley
Lathe	Sutton-at-Hone
Poor Law union	Bromley

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

Church Records

The register of St. Martin dates from the year 1538.

Findmypast have the following online for Chelsfield, St Martin of Tours: baptisms 1558-1812, marriages 1558-1812, burials 1558-1851

Churches

Church of England

St. Martin (parish church)

The church of St. Martin is of flint and stone, chiefly in the Early English style, but the nave is in part Norman, and two Norman windows remain: on the south side is the small chapel of St. John, and there is a tower with spire containing 5 bells, cast in 1672 and rehung in 1880: there is a brass to Robert le Brun, rector, 1417, another to Wm. Robroke, rector, 1420, to three George Smiths, rectors 1570-1650, an elaborate monument to Peter Collett, 1607, and a brass to Alice Bray, 1510: the church affords 250 sittings.

Methodist

Wesleyan Methodist Chapel

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 Chelsfield from the following:

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

Maps

Online maps of Chelsfield 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.