“Preston” defined
KEY TO MAP
1 Sootfield Green; 2 Castle Farm; 3 Pond Farm; 4 Rose Cottage; 5 The Wilderness;
6 Sadleirs End;7 Chequers Inn; 8 Spindle Cottage; 9 Home Farm; 10 Bunyan’s Cottage;
11 “The Cottage”/Dower House; 12 Temple Dinsley; 13 Temple Farm; 14 Bunyan’s Chapel;
15 St Martin’s Place; 16 St Martin’s Church; 17 The Old Forge; 18 Fig Tree Cottage;
9 Laburnum Lodge and Kenwood Cottage; 20 The Red Lion; 21 Kiln Wood Cottage;
22 Minsden Farm (aka Ladygrove); 23 Hitchwood Cottages;
24 Preston Hill (Reeves) Cottage; 25 Preston Hill Farm
For the purpose of analysis, it is not straightforward to define Preston. Before 1894, Preston was not
a parish. Parts of the hamlet were included in the parishes of Hitchin, Ippollitts and Kings Walden.
(Link: Preston’s Parishes and Manors)
Most parishes were centred on their church. This was typically surrounded by a cluster of homes
inhabited by tradesmen and labourers. Further out from this hub were the farms and the scattered
cottages of farm workers.
I have adopted this model to define Preston. Included, therefore, are the people living within the
central ‘figure of eight’ formed by Church, Chequers, Butchers, School and Back Lanes and
Crunnells Green. Then, there are the cottages on the outskirts of the village: Kiln Cottage, Hitchwood,
Poynders End, Hill End, Sootfield Green and Wain Wood. These are the families that I have included
as ‘Preston’ for the censuses.
It might be argued that Hill End should be grouped with Langley and not Preston. However, there is
an equal distance between Hill End and Preston or Langley. Also, in some parish records, Hill End is
described as being part of Preston. When Annie Rose Shambrook, the daughter of farmer James and
his wife Rose, was baptised on 26 June 1863, their place of residence was described as ‘Hill End,
Preston’. And children from Hill End attended Preston School. In the 1890’s the Preston School
register shows Emily and Charles Thrussell, Ernest Busby and Mary Wright as residing at Hill End.
