Ravenstone, Buckinghamshire
Historical Description
Ravenstone, a village and a parish in Bucks. The village stands 1 mile S of the boundary with Northamptonshire, and 3 miles W of Olney station on the Bedford and Northampton branch of the M.R. Post town, Newport Pagnell; money order and telegraph office, Olney. The parish comprises 2075 acres; population, 300. There is a parish council consisting of five members. The manor belongs to the Finch family. A Black priory was founded here in 124G, and was given to Cardinal Wolsey. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford; gross value, £100 with residence. The church is Norman, in good condition, and contains a very fine monument of Lord Chancellor Finch. There are school endowments worth £150 a year, and twelve almshouses for six poor men and six poor women. The founder of the Seatonian prize poem, Cambridge University, was vicar, and is buried here.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
| Ancient County | Buckinghamshire | |
| Ancient County | Derbyshire | |
| Ecclesiastical parish | Ravenstone All Saints | |
| Ecclesiastical parish | Ravenstone St. Michael | |
| Hundred | Newport | |
| Hundred | Repton and Gresley | |
| Poor Law union | Newport-Pagnell | |
| Poor Law union | Ashby |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The parish register dates from the year 1568.
Churches
Church of England
All Saints (parish church)
The church of All Saints is a building of stone in the Early English and Perpendicular styles, consisting of chancel, nave, south aisle prolonged to the east end, and a low western tower containing a clock and 3 bells: at the east end of the aisle is a tomb with columns of black marble supporting a canopy, to Sir Heneage Finch kt. first Earl of Nottingham and keeper of the Great Seal, ob. 18 Dec. 1682; on the tomb lies a semi-recumbent marble effigy, and below it a long eulogistic inscription in Latin: on the east side of the churchyard is a plain stone, with Latin inscription worn away by weather, and now copied on a tablet in the south aisle, to the Rev. Thomas Seaton, formerly fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge, and founder of the annual Seatonian prize at Cambridge, who died in 1741: there are two stained windows in the south aisle, one the gift of Mrs. Godfrey in memory of her husband, the Rev. William Godfrey, vicar 1824-60, and another to William Godfrey esq.: there is a tablet of black and white marble on which are inscribed the names of the parishioners who fell in the Great War, 1914-18: the church was thoroughly restored in 1885 and the mortuary chapel or vestry in 1892: there are 250 sittings.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Ravenstone was in Newport Pagnell Registration District from 1837 to 1935
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Ravenstone from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Ravenstone (St. Michael))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Buckinghamshire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Ravenstone 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