Bray Berkshire Family History Guide
Bray is an Ancient Parish in the county of Berkshire.
Other places in the parish include: Holyport
Parish church: St. Michael
Parish registers begin:
- Parish registers: 1652
- Bishop’s Transcripts: 1607
Nonconformists include:
- Countess of Huntingdon Methodist
- Independent/Congregational
- Primitive Methodist
- Wesleyan Methodist
Table of Contents
Adjacent Parishes
- Dorney, Buckinghamshire
- Clewer
- Cookham Dean
- Cranbourne
- Taplow, Buckinghamshire
- White Waltham with Shottesbrooke
- New Windsor Holy Trinity
- Boveney, Buckinghamshire
- Maidenhead
- Warfield
Parish History
Bray
The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870
BRAY, a village, a parish, a subdistrict and a hundred in Cookham district, Berks. The village stands on the Thames, near the Great Western railway, 1½ mile S by E of Maidenhead; and has a post office under Maidenhead. It occupies the site of the Roman station Bibracte; and is now within the liberty of Windsor forest.
The parish consists of the four divisions of Bray, Maidenhead, Touchen, and Water-Oakley; and contains part of the borough of Maidenhead. Acres, 9,102. Real property, £26,694. Pop., 4,801. Houses, 953.
The property is much subdivided. Bray-Wick-Lodge and Bray Grove are chief residences; Ockwells is an old seat; and Cresswells, formerly Filberts, was the place of Nell Gwynne’s residence. Jesus’ Hospital, founded in 1627 by William Goddard, for 44 persons, is a picturesque brick quadrangle, with an old chapel. Monkey Island, about a mile SE of the village, contains a decayed fishing-house, built by the third Duke of Marlborough, the drawing-room of which was grotesquely decorated with paintings of monkeys.
The living is a vicarage, united with the p. curacy of Touchen-End, in the diocese of Oxford. Value, £500. Patron, the Bishop of Oxford. The church is early English and decorated; has a much later square tower; and-was repaired and altered in 1862.
Boyne-Hill vicarage is a separate benefice. There are a chapel-of-ease built in 1864, a Wesleyan chapel, two national schools, an endowed hospital, forming a square of 40 houses with a chapel, and other charities £43. Archbishop Land had a farm in the parish; and Simon Aleyn, notable for having repeatedly changed his creed from popery to Protestantism, and from protestantism to popery, was vicar in four reigns, and died in 1588. An old ballad represents him as saying,-
And this is law, I will maintain
Until my dying day, sir,
That whatsoever king shall reign,
I’ll be the vicar of Bray, sir.
The subdistrict contains four parishes. Acres, 16,462. Pop., 6,714. Houses, 1,320.
The hundred is of less extent than Bray parish. Pop., 2,936. Houses, 586.
Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].
The Parliamentary Gazetteer of England and Wales 1851
Bray, a parish, in itself a hund., union of Cookham, county of Berks; 2 miles south by east of Maidenhead, on the southern bank of the river Thames, and intersected by the Great Western railway.
It comprises the divisions of Bray, Touchen, Mater-Oakley, and part of Maidenhead. Living, a vicarage, formerly in the archd. of Berks and dio. of Salisbury, now in the dio. of Oxford; valued at £25 4s. 4½d.; gross income £520; in the patronage of the bishop of Oxford. The vicarial tithes, the property of the vicar, were commuted in 1814. There are three daily schools, one of which is endowed with £21 per annum, three Sunday schools and a day and Sunday school, in this parish.
Here are eighteen free tenements, given for the use of the poor by Sir John Norris. In 1627, William Goddard, Esq., founded and endowed here an hospital, called Jesus hospital, and placed it under the direction of the Fishmongers’ company in London. The inmates are 40 in number, 6 of whom must be free of the Fishmongers’ company. One poor person of this parish is entitled to a place in Lucas’s hospital. Other charities connected with this parish produce about £250 per annum.
Bray was famous for a time-serving vicar, who, during the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, changed his religion so as to retain his charge, being twice a protestant, and twice a papist. This unprincipled conduct having attracted notice, he is said to have defended himself on the ground that his ruling principle was “to live and die vicar of Bray.”
About three quarters of a mile from this place stands Monkey island, a picturesque spot in the river Thames, fancifully decorated by the third duke of Marlborough for the accommodation of angling parties. Pop., in 1801, 2,403; in 1831, 3,480. Houses 703. Acres 8,900. A.P. £17,950. Poor rates, in 1837, £1,102.
Source: The Parliamentary Gazetteer of England and Wales; A Fullarton & Co. Glasgow; 1851.
Leonard’s Gazetteer of England and Wales 1850
Bray, 1m. S. Maidenhead. P. 3722.
Source: Leonard’s Gazetteer of England and Wales; Second Edition; C. W. Leonard, London; 1850.
Boyne Hill
The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870
BOYNE-HILL, a chapelry, with a railway station, in Bray parish, Berks; on the Great Western railway, in the southern vicinity of Maidenhead. Post Town, Maidenhead. Pop., 1,071. The living in a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford. Value, £120. Patron, the Bishop of Oxford. The church was built in 1857, and is in the Gothic style and ornate. There are national schools.
Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].
Bankrupts
Below is a list of people that were declared bankrupt between 1820 and 1843 extracted from The Bankrupt Directory; George Elwick; London; Simpkin, Marshall and Co.; 1843.
Hawkins John, Holyport, Berkshire, late Maidenhead, farmer, July 8, 1842.
Parish Records
FamilySearch
Administration
- County: Berkshire
- Civil Registration District: Cookham
- Probate Court: Court of the Archdeaconry of Berkshire
- Diocese: Pre-1836 – Salisbury, Post-1835 – Oxford
- Rural Deanery: Reading
- Poor Law Union: Cookham
- Hundred: Bray
- Province: Canterbury