Stoke Abbott, circa 1841

I have done my best to locate the households of Stoke Abbott in 1841 by combining the details shown on the Census for that year and the Tithe Map for 1842.  This is not the easiest of tasks as the Tithe Map records Landowners and Occupiers while the Census lists individuals by household. The Occupier of a property in Tithe terms being the person who owns or leases the plot and pays the tithes. This is not necessarily the physical occupant of the property (eg George HANN snr who was a landlord and Parish Clerk is shown as being occupier of a house at Curfew Plot owned by the Parish, the house he lived in and also property five other plots that he let out).  A Household in the Census could just be one person, so a property could be occupied by a family with a household head and a number of their family etc, or it could just be occupied by three different individuals who would all be shown as the head of their individual household.  It appears that some households lived in properties divided for multi-occupancy (Nos. 3, 9, 16, 25 and 35 on map) whereas others just lived in a room within larger properties. For those households for whom I have been unable to ascertain living arrangements, those with the knowledge may be possible to make an educated guess by investigating whether there are sufficient relationships between them to believe they may have lived together (eg three households for two properties - SMITH, Jones and Brown, for instance - was Mrs SMITH nee Jones?)

Households of the 1841 census (in census order)

A full list of 1841 inhabitants can be found on the Dorset OPC webpage

Map of Stoke Abbott village

It was not until I did this exercise that I realised that at this time the village was split into three parts, occupationally.  To the north of the village where the road travels west-east and where there were two farms, and south of the church where there were two more farms, lived the majority of farm labourers.  In the centre, around the church and in a large swathe down to the valley in which the flax mill (next to Horsehill Farm) was situated to the east of the village between the Beaminster and Netherbury roads, lived those employed in the processing of flax and the manufacture of sailcloth and sacking.  Those few flax workers who lived in the north doing so at the eastern end of the village nearest the road to the mill which led off the Beaminster road.  'Service' occupations being spread amongst the village to be available to all.  The farm that I have marked as Payne's Farm (as it was owned by George Payne) which later became the New Inn seems to have been recorded as Stoke Farm in 1851.  In 1841 and 1861, none of the farms were named and in 1851 the only one named was Stoke Farm which seems to be in the north of the village next to the pub - the one near the church being un-named

Since creating this page ancestry.co.uk and thegenealogist.co.uk have put tithe map details online so I have been able to check where various houses are and if necessary revise the original table (above).  Below is a table of tithe equivalents and their owners and residents

Entries for the 1839 Tithe map