Stoke St Gregory History Pages
Stoke Family Names
The earliest record of the Hembrow family we have in Stoke is William Hinborow, whose son, also William, was one of the first baptisms to be recorded in the parish, in 1562. By 1604 the spelling is Himborow. After a brief appearance of Hemborrow in 1626, the following year saw one of the ‘r’s being dropped. Hemborow remained, but the rest of the 17th Century saw many more variations. Hemborowe, Henbrough, Hembry, Hembury, Henborow, Henbrough, and Henbury all appear in the registers. In 1743 Hembrow appears for the first time, but is still greatly outnumbered by the other spellings. It is not until 1800 that Hembrow becomes the common spelling and the other variants disappear from the registers.
Garlant was another family already in the village when records began to be kept, and they soon became the Garlands that remained for the next 500 years. The Chedzoy name does not appear until 1663, when Robert and Elizabeth’s son Edward was baptised, but by the time their daughter Judith was baptised in 1671 their name was written Chidzoy. In the mid 18th Century Joseph and Hannah were recorded as Chedzey, Chedzoy and Chedzy at different times. To complicate things further there was also a Walter and Jane Chedgzoy. In contrast, the House family, who first appear in the registers in 1569, when John House married Margaret Hobbs, vary very little in later times, apart from a few instances of Howse.
A third name of interest is our modern day Boobyer. In the early 17thC it was spelt Boobier or Bowbier. Later on in that century the names Booby and Boobey appear. The 18thC saw Boobeer and Boobyer appear, but Booby, Boobey, and even Boobby were still around at the end of the century. 1838 saw the last use of Boobier in the parish records, and all that remained was Boobyer.
Lost Names
During the 16th and 17th centuries village family names included Backaller, Blode, Coom, Furse, Gent, Kinglake, Lekie, Shewbrooke and Titeford. Apart from the Kinglake family, who became important landowners, and Gent, these names disappear from the register, but depending on the sex of children this can often happen as daughters marry into other local families. Another family name that is one of the first in the 16th Century parish registers is Dight. The name does not appear after 1700, so we can assume that the male line either died or left the area. Of the females, Fate married Thomas Wilmott in 1570, Anstice married John Jenkins in 1576, Joan married Robert Furze an 1576, Edith married John Brice in 1595, Elizabeth married Philip Browne in 1596, and Agnes married Robert Lekie in 1605. So the blood line may well still be in the village today.
What the Dight family did leave behind was the name of the farm in Slough Lane. Benedict Barrington is recorded as owning and occupying Dight’s in the 1840 Tithe Apportionment book, together with the land currently surrounding Dykes Farm. According to the 1841 Census, William Franklin, 30 year old farm labourer, lived just up from the farm in a cottage on the other side of the road, with his wife Elizabeth and their three children. Twenty years later another William Franklin, a 75 year old farmer with 20 acres, was living at Dight’s, and yet another Franklin was living across the road, which was still known as Dight’s Hill rather than Slough Lane. On the 1868 parish map (still stored under the stage in the village hall) the farm was still called Dight’s. On the first OS map, the name appears as Dyke’s Farm. This is also the name used by Thomas House who farmed 82 acres there in 1881. He was 26 and his sister Rosie, age 15, still at school, lived with him, together with Emily Winchester, an 18 year old domestic servant.