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CLAPHAM, a parish forming, with the parishes of Milton-Ernest and Oakley, a detached portion of the hundred of STODDEN, county, of BEDFORD, 21 miles (N.W. by N.) from Bedford, containing 204 inhabitants. The living is a discharged vicarage, in the archdeaconry of Bedford, and diocese of Lincoln, rated in the king's books at £6.13.4., endowed with £600 private benefaction, and £600 royal bounty, and in the patronage of the Earl of Ashburnham. The church, dedicated to St. Thomas à Becket, is a very ancient structure, with a Norman, or Saxon, tower remarkable for the simplicity and rudeness of its architecture. Clapham was formerly a chapelry in the parish of Oakley; the inhabitants still bury there. Here are charitable donations, producing £20 per annum, for the purpose of apprenticing boys.
[A Topographical Dictionary of England - Samuel Lewis - 1831]
The 1851 Census Index for Clapham can be found in the 1851 Index to Census of Bedfordshire, Volume 1, Book 3 available from the Bedfordshire Family History Society.
Church of England
The church of St. Thomas-a-Becket rebuilt, with the exception of the tower, in 1861, is of native limestone, in the Early English style, from designs by the late Sir G. Gilbert Scott R.A. and consists of chancel, nave, aisles, and a very early and massive tower 81 feet high, without buttresses, mentioned by Rickman as one of the best and most remarkable of the remaining examples of Early Saxon work in the kingdom, and containing 5 bells; the two lower stages are of earlier date than the third or upper portion; they are lighted by narrow semi-circular-headed openings, deeply splayed within and without; the entrance from the outside in the west front is by a semi-circular-headed doorway, 4ft. wide, entirely destitute of moulding, and in the east side from the church by a plain semi-circular arch with abacus, to which the ancient arch between the nave and chancel corresponds; the second stage has on its east face a large square-headed aperture or doorway, coeval with its construction ; the walls of both these stages diminish gradually in thickness from 5 ft. at the base; the third, or upper stage is of Late Saxon or Early Norman work, and has very wide round-headed two-light windows, set near the outer face of the wall and broadly splayed within, divided in the centre by a heavy mullion : about 1630 the walls were embattled and a new roof erected, but this was replaced by another in 1897: there are five stained windows to the Dawson family, and a monument to Thomas Taylor esq. of this place, whose widow founded the charity mentioned below. The register dates from the year 1696.
[Kelly's Directory - Bedfordshire - 1898]
Non-conformist
The Wesleyan chapel was built in 1876.
[Kelly's Directory - Bedfordshire - 1898]
The parish record transcripts for St. Thomas-a-Becket are available on microfiche for the period 1696-1812 from the Bedfordshire Family History Society.
Clapham Historical Society
The Clapham Historical Society was founded in 1992 and focuses on the local history of Clapham and the surrounding area.
The Society meets monthly, with talks held in the village hall during the winter, outings to places of local interest in the spring and summer, and trips by coach or minibus to places further afield.
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[Last updated 27 April 2006 Martin Edwards]