Addington

The following reference sources have been used in the construction of this page, and may be referred to for further detail. All of these volumes are available in the Reference section of the County Library in Aylesbury.

All Buckinghamshire sources

"The Buildings of England, Buckinghamshire", Pevsner N. and Williamson E., 1994, pp 127-8, ISBN 0 14 071062 0.
"The History and Antiquities of the County of Buckingham", Lipscomb G., 1847, Vol.2, pp 505-512.
"The Place-Names of Buckinghamshire", Mawer A. and Stenton F.M., 1925, pp 51-2.
"The Victoria History of the Counties of England: Buckinghamshire, Page W. ed., 1905-1928, Vol.4, pp 137-140.
"Magna Britannia: Buckinghamshire", Lysons S. and Lysons D., 1806, Vol. 3, pp 494-5.
"Topographical Dictionary of England", Lewis S., 1831, Vol. 1, p 10.
"Highways and Byways in Buckinghamshire", Shorter C., 1910, pp 82-3.
"Buckinghamshire Returns of the Census of Religious Worship 1851", Legg E. ed., 1991, p 1, ISBN 0 901198 27 7.
"Buckinghamshire Contributions for Ireland 1642", Wilson J., 1983, p 103.
"War Memorials and War Graves, Volume 4, North Central Bucks", Quick P., 1995, , p 1.

Addington local sources

"St. Mary the Virgin Addington", C.B., 1988, church guide.

The well-known natives and residents of Addington include:

• John Gellibrand HUBBARD (1805-1889), 1st Baron Addington, banker (Director of the Bank of England) and Conservative M.P. for Buckingham. He lived and died at Addington Manor and is buried in the churchyard. The DNB wrongly ascribes his title to Addington in Surrey, with which this village is often confused.
• Egerton HUBBARD (1842-1915), 2nd Baron Addington, Provincial Grand Master for Bucks and Conservative M.P. for Buckingham (1874-1880) and for North Bucks (1886-1889).

• Transcripts of all the gravestones in the churchyard can be found on the website for the church of St Mary the Virgin, Addington
• MIs in Addington church and churchyard have also been transcribed by the Buckinghamshire Family History Society.
• War memorials in Addington have been transcribed by Peter Quick and published by the Buckinghamshire Genealogical Society.

In 1642 there were 23 people named in the tax returns for contributions for Ireland. Between them they were assessed at £3.3.0 of which sum Mr. Busbie contributed £2.

The population of Addington in 1712 was recorded as 17 families and about 80 inhabitants, by 1988 it hadn't altered very much. There were then 70 names on the Parish Electoral Roll.

In 1798 the Posse Comitatus listed 25 men between the ages of 16 and 60 in Addington. Their occupations were entirely based on agriculture.

In the earliest government census of 1801, there were 93 inhabitants in 15 families living in 10 houses recorded in Addington.

* = No names were recorded in census documents from 1801 to 1831.
** = Census documents from 1911 to 2001 are only available in summary form. Names are witheld under the 100 year rule.

Microfilm copies of all census enumerators' notebooks for 1841 to 1891 are held at the Local Studies Libraries at Aylesbury and Milton Keynes, as well as centrally at the PRO. A table of 19th century census headcount by parish is printed in the VCH of Bucks, Vol.2, pp 96-101.

Availability of census transcripts and indexes.

• 1851 - Full transcripts and indexes for Buckinghamshire are available on CD-ROM, hard copy and microfiche from the Buckinghamshire Family History Society.
• 1861 - Available on CD-ROM with advanced search and mapping capabilities etc. from the Buckinghamshire Genealogical Society.
• 1881
  • Available on CD-ROM from the Church of the Latter Day Saints, as part of the National 1881 Census Index.
  • Available on CD-ROM for Buckinghamshire, with advanced search and mapping capabilities etc. from Drake Software.
• 1891 - Available on CD-ROM with advanced search and mapping capabilities etc. from the Buckinghamshire Genealogical Society.

The Church of the Assumption of St. Mary the Virgin

During the mid nineteenth century the church underwent a huge restoration, undertaken by John Gellibrand Hubbard, the first Baron Addington, who also, finding the whole estate to have fallen into disrepair, rebuilt the Rectory and many of the other buildings, so that now, most of the buildings are of Victorian origin and all the earlier timbered and thatched houses have gone. The church was restored by G.E. Street in 1857-8, the building work being undertaken by a Mr Tibbitts of Buckingham. More restoration work took place in 1926-30 by Sir Charles Nicholson for Mr Smith-Bingham.

The Church has a Nave, Chancel, North and South Aisles, Vestry, Porch and crenellated Tower. At the right hand side of the main Altar, is a twelfth century capital and shaft which has been converted into a piscina. This had originally been stored in the vestry together with the stone slab which has been let into the Altar. The date of these two artefacts suggests that a church stood on this site in the twelfth century, and we know that the earliest Rector, when records began in 1222, was Henry de Hogginshall.

The Chancel Arch and the Tower are original fourteenth century, the Tower has unusual pillared supports. It was at this time that the North and South Aisles would have been added, and according to the records, in 1490 the tower was restored. In 1858 rebuilding work took place, which included the Porch, Aisles, and Chancel and the addition of a Vestry. The font is nineteenth century.

The windows of the Chancel are in the style of the fourteenth century, and either side of the Nave are restored fourteenth century arcades of three pointed arches supported by octagonal piers. The Clerestory windows are circular and have glass contemporary with the nineteenth century but the openings may be fourteenth century.

The West Window is of two cinquefoil lights under a four centred head and is probably fifteenth century and it is likely that it was inserted at the time the Tower was restored.

The windows, although originally recorded as having plain glass, now have the largest collection of Netherlandish glass in any church in the country, and are thought to have been collected by the first Lord Addington. The East Window and Clerestory glass is Victorian.

The main Altar, has let into it a very rare "Super Altare" probably of the fourteenth century. It was discovered during the nineteenth century restoration, together with six books walled up in the Chancel, where they had been placed 300 years earlier at the time of the trouble between the King and Church. The Books are an ancient and valuable record of their times.

The principal monuments in the church are to the Busby family.

The church now has three bells in use, by John Warner and son 1870, Chandler 1656, and R.A. 1626.

The organ was built in 1857.

• Rectors of the Parish Church of Assumption of St. Mary the Virgin

Details of the stained glass in the church can be found on the following web sites (including photographs):

• Buckinghamshire Stained Glass
• The Church of St Mary the Virgin, Addington's home page

The original copies of the Addington parish registers have been deposited in the Buckinghamshire Record Office in Aylesbury, and they hold the following years:

Marriages from 1790 to 1812 appear in Pallot's marriage index held by the IHGS.

Extracts from the Addington registers were published in 1916 by the Buckinghamshire Parish Record Society. "The register of the parish of Addington, Buckinghamshire", Ussher. R, ed., 1916, Vol. 20.

Copies or indexes to the parish registers are available from societies as follows:

* = material held in a Society library is generally available for loan to all members either via post, or by collection at a meeting

An ecclesiastical census was carried out throughout England on 30 March 1851 to record the attendance at all places of worship. These returns are in the Buckinghamshire Record Office and have been published by the Buckinghamshire Record Society (vol 27). The returns for Addington showed the following numbers:

Addington was described in 1806 in "Magna Britannia" as follows:

Addington, in the hundred and deanery of Buckingham, lies about two miles north-west of Winslow. The manor was, at the time of the Norman survey, part of the large possessions of Odo, Bishop of Baieux: after his banishment, it seems to have been acquired by the family of Romenel, who before had held it under him, and to have been alienated by them to the Fitz-Bernards. In 1313, it was purchased of the latter by John Blackett, who not long afterwards conveyed it to Sir John Molins: having passed by female heirs to the families of Hungerford and Hastings, it was sold, in 1532, to the Curzons, and by them, about 1620, to the Busbys. This manor is now the property of the Hon. General Vere Poulett, under the wills of Lady Kemys and her maiden sister, daughters and co-heirs of the Rev. Thos. Busby, who died in 1725; these ladies deceased within a few months of each other, in 1800 and 1801. The manor-house was the seat of the Busbys, of which family there are several memorials in the parish church: Sir John Busby, who died in 1700, was colonel of the Buckinghamshire militia. The advowson of the rectory, which was formerly vested in the prior and convent of St. John of Jerusalem, has been annexed to the manor ever since the restoration: the tithes and glebe of this parish were exchanged for certain lands, settled on the rector, by act of parliament in 1726.

Samuel Lewis's 1831 "Topographical Dictionary of England" describes the village of Addington as:

ADDINGTON, a parish in the hundred and county of BUCKINGHAM, 1¾ mile (W.N.W.) from Winslow, containing 89 inhabitants. The living is a rectory, in the archdeaconry of Buckingham, and diocese of Lincoln, rated in the king's books at £9.9.7., and in the patronage of John Poulett, Esq. The church is dedicated to St. Mary. A small sum of money was bequeathed by Ann Busby, in 1736, for educating and apprenticing poor children. On the border of the parish is a place called "Gallows Gap", where, in the reign of Edward III, a gallows was erected by one of the family of Molines, who, as lord of the barony, possessed the power of trying and executing capital offenders.

Writing in 1910 in "Highways and Byways of Buckinghamshire", Clement Shorter commented on Addington.

Continuing along the Buckingham Road we can turn to the left to Addington, with its park and its modern Manor House, built near the site of an older structure....Near the church are the old stocks, although one wonders why they could have been wanted in this tiny village. The population was 93 in 1801, and 102 in 1901 - a growth of nine lives in a century.

• Buckinghamshire Church Photos by Kevin Quick.
• Buckinghamshire Village Photos by Kevin Quick.
• The Church of St Mary the Virgin, Addington's home page has many photos of the church including the stained glass

• Geograph
• Flickr

• Ask for a calculation of the distance from Addington to another place.

The present Addington House is the much altered remainder of the ancient Mansion House, after, the then Lord Addington had demolished the rest in 1857. At the same period, on a new site, he had another Manor House built, designed by Philip Hardwick, which was subsequently pulled down, and is now the location of the present, neo-classical style Manor, which was built by Michael Waterhouse for Mr Smith-Bingham.

Addington was used as the headquarters for the Parliamentarians twice during the Civil War, and it is thought that the ancient barn attached to Addington House, was almost certainly used by the troops. In the wall near the barn can be seen the resited village stocks and in the fields part of the moat can still be found.

At the time that the Domesday Book was written, Addington belonged to Odo Bishop of Bayeaux, the half brother of William the Conquerer.

The Living and the Rectory were given in 1222 by the, then, owners the Fitz-Bernards to the Priory of St. John of Jerusalem and so continued until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1542. It then became the propety of the Curzon family, later being sold to John Busby in 1628, this was the start of a long association with the Busby family.

In 1700 Thomas Busby was both the Patron and Rector and was responsible for the church restoration work in 1710. It was his two daughters Jane Busby and Anne Tynte, who set up the two Addington Charities and bequeathed the Estate to the Honourable Vere Poulett a son of the Earl of Poulett.

Later owners were John Gellibrand Hubbard a London merchant, who became the first Baron Addington in 1887. He was followed by his son Egerton Hubbard and then by his son, John Gellibrand OBE third Baron. At his death, the Diocesan Board of Patronage, became patrons of the Living and the Hubbard connection with Addington ended.

During the First World War the House was let as a school, after the war it became a hotel and eventually was pulled down by Mr Smith-Bingham at the beginning of the 1920s. The owners in 1978 were the Earl and Countess of Inchcape.

During the Second World War Addington House, home of Smith-Bingham,  was used as a residence for  the Czechoslovak Military Intelligence staff and families.

A street map of Addington and a County map of Buckinghamshire can be found on the Buckinghamshire Genealogical Society pages.

You can see maps centred on OS grid reference SP743286 (Lat/Lon: 51.950939, -0.920314), Addington which are provided by:

• OpenStreetMap
• Google Maps
• StreetMap (Current Ordnance Survey maps)
• Bing (was Multimap)
• Old Maps Online
• National Library of Scotland (Old Ordnance Survey maps)
• Vision of Britain (Click "Historical units & statistics" for administrative areas.)
• English Jurisdictions in 1851 (Unfortunately the LDS have removed the facility to enable us to specify a starting location, you will need to search yourself on their map.)
• Magic (Geographic information) (Click + on map if it doesn't show)
• GeoHack (Links to on-line maps and location specific services.)

• All places within the same township/parish shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby townships/parishes shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby places shown on an Openstreetmap map.

It is probable that the name was derived from Adda or Æddi an early Saxon owner, and means "The place of Adda's people", or "Æddi's farm". This may well be the same person whose name is used in the nearby parish of Adstock.

Addington is in the Archdeaconry of Buckingham in the Diocese of Lincoln. Wills before 1858 will be found in the Buckinghamshire Record Office, Aylesbury, where there are card indexes for wills (1483-1857) and admons (1632-1857).