Yateley, Hampshire

Yateley is a town of 20,500 people in the NE of Hampshire between Aldershot and Reading. Although it achieved town status in 1976, it still has a community that feels more like a village than a town. There's no railway station but it has an airport and is close to the M3 motorway. It has a police station and a fire station and is well blessed with green space like several village greens and parkland commons.

Built on Bagshot Sands under lowland heath, the area was used throughout the 20th century as a source of sand and gravel for buildings and roadworks. There are no quarries in action today and many of these redundant quarries have been turned in reservoirs and fishing lakes,, internationally known to anglers.

The Parish church of St Peter's has Saxon origins, which came to light in a devastating fire in 1978. There is a Baptist Church on Cricket Hill Green, the Catholic Church of St Swithins near Yateley Green and an Anglican Church  of St Barnabus servicing the hamlets of Darby Green and Frogmore.

Yateley's first Victorians

My study of my home town started with the 1841 census. I took the existing transcription of the census and, using the sparse information, available tried to trace the life history of each individual to find out where they came from, what the relationships were between the household members and where they went to after this census, tracing them through subsequent census records and through the parish registers.

The original Yateley boundaries in the first half of the 19th century was over 10,000 acres, and covered the tithings of Yateley, Hawley and Cove and although the latter two villages created their own parishes in 1838 and 1844 respectively, until 1881 the census enumerators still considered them all part of Yateley. Today Yateley village is a quarter of the original acreage.

The tithing of Yateley alone was transcribed from 1841 to 1891, I have since transcribed the tithings of Hawley and Cove for 1841 and partly all three tithings since 1841 up to 1939.

"around Yateley Magazine"

When I retired in 2015, I  was invited to stand as a Town Councillor again, having served 1987-99, and was elected as Deputy Mayor. Whilst deputising for the Mayor I discovered the fantastic charity areoBILITY at Blackbushe Airport, a charity which helps disabled people to become pilots. I wrote an article for publication before discovering the online "Yateley Magazine" had just stopped publishing. After consulting local organisations touting for editorial contributions, I started a new magazine which I published for 2 years from 2016-18 , until local contributions dried up.  In subsequent years I also produced special editions covering the Gig on the Green, an annual music festival held on the village green.

Parish registers

The parish church dates back to at least 800 CE and there is evidence of it being burned down much earlier than the 1978 fire, probably burned by Vikings who sailed up the Thames and were based in Reading whilst terrorising the surrounding areas, with battles recorded to the south of us in Farnborough and to the west at Old Basing. 

The county boundary between Hampshire and both Berkshire and Surrey is formed by the River Blackwater which also forms the parish boundary on the estate and north. An article about Beating the Bounds in 1902 (Hants & Berks |Gazette, Saturday 10 May page 6 column 2) states that about 300 yards from the bridge over the river there was an island or Eyot next to the mill, the only island on the river; the unnamed author of the article thought that the village probably got its name from this isle and the clearing in the wood, i.e. Eyot-ley.

Yateley was in the Hundred of Crondall, as were the parishes of Farnborough, Aldershot, Crondall and Long Sutton. Minley, long part of the Yateley parish was in Holdshot Hundred, which included Eversley. Between Domesday and the end of the 19th century, the following parishes were formed in Crondall: Cove 1844 (from Yateley), Crookham 1842 (from Crondall), Ewshott 1886 (from Crondall and Crookham,) Fleet 1863 (from Crondall, Elvetham and Yateley), Hawley 1838 (from Yateley), and Minley 1871 (from Yateley). Cove became a civil parish in 1866

The Census Enumerators in 1841 would have regarded all the three tithings, the settlements of Yateley, Blackwater, Hawley, Cove and Minley, as part of Yateley, and that continued until 1881.

Practically, for generations before this census, Yateley village dwellers would have used St Peter's church, but the people in the hamlets of Darby Green and Frogmore may have used Sandhurst church, residents in Blackwater, Hawley and Cove may have found Farnborough more convenient. Even after the churches  in Hawley and Cove were built, some of those residents still used Yateley. 

The neighbouring Parish registers are still being transcribed and the 1841 census references added to the names. Please bear in mind this is very much a work in progress and I will upload updates on a monthly basis.