Contents Buckinghamshire  Nearby Places Luffield Abbey "Luffield covers 216 acres, two-thirds of which are devoted to pasture and one-third to arable land. The soil is clay and gravel and the subsoil various. Luffield was formerly extra-parochial, and considered partly in Buckinghamshire, where it was accessed under Stowe (whose boundaries do not, however, touch it at any point), and partly in Silverstone in Northamptonshire, where the monastic church formerly stood. In 1831 its area was given as 450 acres, of which 60 lay in Northamptonshire. In 1881 it was still reckoned as extra-parochial, but is now rated as a parish extending into both counties. It is still reputed to be extra-parochial for ecclesiastical purposes. The parish consists of a single farm, of which the house occupied in 1831 by the whole population, a family of ten persons, is situated to the north-east, on the site of the old priory. No traces now remain of the former conventual buildings, and even Willis, who visited Luffield on 11 October 1732, found only a piece of the old tower of the church, from which he deduced the supposed dimensions of the church, 80 ft. in length and 30 ft. in breadth." [© copyright of the editors of The Victoria Histories of the Counties of England]

Bibliography

The following reference sources have been used in the construction of this page, and may be referred to for further detail. Most if not all of these volumes are available in the Reference section of the County Library in Aylesbury.

"The Place-Names of Buckinghamshire", Mawer A. and Stenton F.M., 1925.
"The Victoria History of the Counties of England: Buckinghamshire", Page W. ed., 1905-1928

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Census

In the earliest government census of 1801, there were 16 inhabitants in 3 families living in 3 houses recorded in Luffield Abbey.

* = No names were recorded in census documents from 1801 to 1831.
** = Census documents from 1911 to 2001 are only available in summary form. Names are witheld under the 100 year rule.

Microfilm copies of all census enumerators' notebooks for 1841 to 1891 are held at the Local Studies Libraries at Aylesbury and Milton Keynes, as well as centrally at the PRO. A table of 19th century census headcount by parish is printed in the VCH of Bucks, Vol.2, pp 96-101.

Availability of census transcripts and indexes.

• 1851 - Full transcripts and indexes for Buckinghamshire are available on CD-ROM, hard copy and microfiche from the Buckinghamshire Family History Society.
• 1861 - Available on CD-ROM with advanced search and mapping capabilities etc. from the Buckinghamshire Genealogical Society.
• 1881
  • Available on CD-ROM from the Church of the Latter Day Saints, as part of the National 1881 Census Index.
  • Available on CD-ROM for Buckinghamshire, with advanced search and mapping capabilities etc. from Drake Software.
• 1891 - Available on CD-ROM with advanced search and mapping capabilities etc. from the Buckinghamshire Genealogical Society.

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Names, Geographical

The name Luffield means 'Lufa's open ground'.

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[Last updated: 12th January 2003 - Kevin Quick]