Place:Laverstoke, Hampshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

Laverstoke is a village in northwest Hampshire, England. Under the name Laverstoke, it forms a parish with the village of Freefolk which lies on the opposite side of the River Test.

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Laverstoke from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"LAVERSTOKE, a village and a parish in Whitchurch [registration] district, Hants. The village stands in the valley of the Test, near the Southwestern railway, 2½ miles NE of Whitchurch; and has a paper mill, which was established in the tune of George I., and which makes the paper of the notes of the Bank of England. The parish comprises 1,530 acres. Post town: Whitchurch. Real property: £1,282. Population: 122. Houses: 24. The property is divided among a few. The manor, with Laverstoke House, belongs to M. Portal, Esq. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Winchester. Value: £180. Patron: M. Portal, Esq. The church is good, and contains tablets of the Portal family. There is a free school."

No details of when banknote production ceased have been found, but Wikipedia states that since 2014 the mill where they were produced is now used for the distilling of gin.

Research Tips

• Victoria County History of Hampshire, volume 4, chapter on Laverstoke.
• GENUKI has a list of archive holders in Hampshire including the Hampshire Record Office, various museums in Portsmouth and Southhampton, the Isle of Wight Record Office and Archives.
• The Hampshire Online Parish Clerk project has a large collection of transcriptions from Parish Registers across Hampshire.
• A listing of all the Registration Districts in England and Wales since their introduction in 1837 together with tables listing the parishes that were part of each district and the time period covered, along with detailed notes on changes of parish name, mergers, etc. Do respect the copyright on this material.
• The three-storey City Museum in Winchester covers the Iron Age and Roman periods, the Middle Ages, and the Victorian period.
• Volumes in The Victoria County History Series are available for Hampshire through British History Online. There are three volumes and the county is covered by parishes within the old divisions of "hundreds".

A collection of maps on the A Vision of Britain through Time website illustrating the English county of Hampshire over the period 1832-1932 (the last two are expandible):

• The Hundreds of Hampshire, a map from HMSO Boundary Commissioners, dated 1832
• Hampshire showing parishes in their Rural Districts as of 1900, a map from the Ordnance Survey
• Hampshire showing parishes in their Rural Districts after the alterations of 1932, a map from the Ordnance Survey

• A group of maps of the post-1974 municipal districts or boroughs of Hampshire on Wikipedia Commons