Walpole St Peter
| |
1813 to 1880 Baptism Project Walpole St Peter |
Baptisms 1813 to 1880
|
The parish of Walpole St peter lies in the far west of
Norfolk within Norfolk's Fenland, indeed Walpole St Peter forms the western
boundary of the county with Lincolnshire for a short stretch. The twin
village of Walpoles St Andrew & St Peter lie in a triangle of land
formed by the A17 (from King's Lynn to Sutton Bridge), the A47 (from King's
Lynn to Wisbech) and the course of the River Nene (from Wisbech to Sutton
Bridge). This is all man-made land reclaimed from the vast wetland that
was once the Wash. The fertility of the land is second to none in Norfolk
and led to a vast local wealth, nowadays it is still a vast, flat agricultural
landscape predominantly growing various vegetables (the air has an odour
of onion & leek at certain times of the year). The landscape is billiard-table
flat (contours are nonexistent with the possible exception of the 0 contour)
and filled with vast skies. Walpole St Peter is built a roughly oval-shaped
group of lanes with the notional centre located to the western end of
that oval. Parish sizes within the Fen district are much larger than those
within eastern Norfolk, Walpole St Peter covered almost 7,000 acres making
it probably 5 or 6 times the size of a Broadland parish, the rich soils
also supported a large population and the parish probably held almost
1,500 parishioners. |
 |
 |
|
| Sadly the registers for Walpole St Peter were stolen from the church in the 1960s, for many years it was hoped they would surface through some obscure antiquarian collection but that has not been the case and it must now, after more than 50 years, be assumed they have been destroyed. To prepare this transcript the only available source was the extant Bishop's Transcripts which, judging by their numbering, indicate that there were 3 standard 1600-entry register books covering the period of this project and onwards into the 20th century. The Bishop's Transcripts are a notorious source being often damaged by the storage methods used for these loose bundles, those for Walpole St Peter are no exception. The quality ranges from the rather good to the extremely poor, the late 1830s and mid 1860s being particularly affected. Luckily the images of these records are now available to view and download from the free web site Familysearch which enables photoshoping techniques to be used to mitigate some of the difficulties. Despite these techniques there will almost certainly be some misreads within this transcript but hopefully they are few in number. In should be stated that, sadly and in common with most Norfolk Archdeaconry parishes, 1875 has been lost and consequently 56 entries are lost forever. The BTs reveal that the registers were at times irregularly kept, there being many entries out of date sequence and also a few with incomplete dates. |
Back 1815 1820 1825 1830 1835 1840 1845 1850 1855 1860 1865 1870 1875 1880
Back 1815 1820 1825 1830 1835 1840 1845 1850 1855 1860 1865 1870 1875 1880
Corrections to Tinstaafl Transcripts