Water Stratford, Buckinghamshire
Historical Description
Water Stratford, a small parish in Bucks, on the river Ouse, 3 miles E from Fulwell and Westbury station on the Banbury and Bletchley branch of the L. & N.W.R,, and 3½ W by N from Buckingham. Post town and money order office, Buckingham; telegraph office, Tingewick. Acreage, 1102; population, 137. There is a parish council consisting of five members. The manor, with most of the land, belongs to the Parker family. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Oxford; net value, £171 with residence. The church is an ancient building of stone in the Norman style.
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 | Water Stratford St. Giles | |
Hundred | Buckingham | |
Poor Law union | Buckingham |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The parish register dates from the year 1596.
Churches
Church of England
St. Giles (parish church)
The church of St. Giles is an ancient building of stone, originally Norman, but rebuilt in 1828, and consisting of chancel, nave, and a western tower containing 3 bells: on the rebuilding, the doors and windows of the old edifice were reinserted: in the north wall of the nave is a monument of marble representing a female lying on a bed, dying, with six females kneeling by her Side, and two boys and a man at the foot; it is inscribed to Mary Franckyshe, the wife of John Franckyshe, of Water Stratford who died in 1629: there is an aumbry in the north wall of the chancel: the south doorway, a work of the Early Norman period, with zig-zag mouldings and other ornament, has in the tympanum a carved figure of Our Lord seated in majesty, and on either side an angel kneeling: the chancel doorway, also 12th century, has a carved tympanum, with a representation of the Agnus Dei: a holy table of Jacobean period has been restored and reinstated to its original position and use: a stone tablet, erected in 1921, commemorates the men connected with the parish who fell in the Great War, 1914-18: the church was restored in 1890 at a cost of about £250, and affords 120 sittings.
Civil Registration
Water Stratford was in Buckingham Registration District from 1837 to 1935
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Water Stratford from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Stratford, Water (St. Giles))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Buckinghamshire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Water Stratford 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