Okeover, Staffordshire

Historical Description

Okeover, a village and a parish in Staffordshire. The village stands on the river Dove at the boundary with Derbyshire, 2½ miles NW of Ashborne. Post town, Ashborne. Acreage of parish, 863; population, 81. Okeover Hall is the seat of the Okeover family; was built on the site of a former mansion; contains Raphael's " Holy Family," which was hidden under a floor during the Civil Wars of Charles I.; and contains also paintings by Titian, Carlo Doici, Rubens, and Vandervelde. The property is said to have been in the possession of the Okeover family since Saxon times. The parish contains Hallsteds barrow and Arbour Close Roman camp. The living is a donative in the diocese of Lichfield; value, £40. The church is old and ivy-clad, and contains a triple-canopied brass of an Okeover of 1520, and other monuments to members of the family. It was restored by Sir Gilbert Scott, There are two almsbouses for clergymen's widows.

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.

Church Records

Findmypast, in association with the Staffordshire & Stoke on Trent Archive Service have the Baptisms, Banns, Marriages, and Burials online for Okeover

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Okeover from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Okeover (All Saints))

Land and Property

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

Maps

Online maps of Okeover 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 Staffordshire newspapers online:

• Staffordshire Advertiser
• Tamworth Herald
• Lichfield Mercury
• Staffordshire Sentinel
• Wolverhampton Chronicle and Staffordshire Advertiser