The Parish in General

Southill - the Stanford Road junction - about 1920 [Z1036/106]

Landscape

The parish of Southill contains 5,656 acres (2,289 hectares). The land varies from just 108 feet above sea level, near Stanford Mill|, up to 269 feet north of Rowney Warren|. As might be expected in a river valley the soil is partly gravel but also clay, with an underlying clay subsoil.

 
Southill - School Lane - about 1900 [Z1036/106]

Name

Southill is an ancient parish containing just over 6,000 acres (2,400 hectares) lying in the Wixamtree Hundred|. It was first recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Sudgiuele and Sudgible. The parish has had a wide variety of spellings down the years including: Sudgill (1197); Sutivele (1214); Sugivele, Suziueve and Sugyvel (1215-1219); Sutgylle (1242); Suthigiuel and Suthgyvel (1200-1329); Suthyeuele (1227-1327); Suggivel (1229-1247); Suggeuel (1247); Sutyvell (1273-1287); Sugul and Sugil (1276); Southyevel (1338-1451); Southyevill (1400); Southiell and Southyell (1515-1548) and Southwell (1518-1582). What this variety of spellings makes clear is that the origin of the name is not south hill but south Ivel. Today the river only forms a small portion of the eastern boundary and is nowhere wholly in the parish.

 
Southill about 1920 [Z1130/106/5b]

Administrative History

Southill is an ancient parish|. Southill village sits more or less in the centre of the parish which is bordered by Biggleswade and Langford to the east, Clifton to south-east, Shefford and Campton & Chicksands to the south, Haynes to the west and Old Warden to west and north. The parish includes the hamlets of Broom| (in the east), Stanford| (in the south east), Ireland| (in the south-west) and Rowney| (in the west).

In 1903 the ecclesiastical parish| of Southill lost some of its area which was transferred to the new ecclesiastical parish of Shefford|. The civil parish of Southill lost some of its land to Shefford in 1933, including Shefford Mills|.

 
Church Cottage March 2008

Population

The Domesday Book| of 1086 notes 29 people as part of the various manors in Southill itself and a further 36 from Stanford and Broom;  if this is multiplied by, say, four to reflect these men's dependents this gives a total of around 120 for Southill and over 250 for the entire parish, proportionately far greater than today.

Volume 81 published by the Bedfordshire Historical Records Society (2002) is devoted to returns made during episcopal visitations| to the county by the Bishop of Lincoln in the early 18th century, edited by former County Archivist Patricia Bell. One of the questions asked was the number of nonconformist families in the parish; the various responses were as follows:

• 1706: 130 families;
• 1709: "Families 120. Souls about 569";
• 1712: 150 families;
• 1717: 150 families;
• 1720: 150 families

In the last two hundred years the population of Southill has changed comparatively little and has, in fact, declined from a high in 1851; as the following figures show:

• 1801: 985;
• 1811: 1,024;
• 1821: 1,165;
• 1831: 1,267;
• 1841: 1,379;
• 1851: 1,400;
• 1861: 1,391;
• 1871: 1,351;
• 1881: 1,227;
• 1891: 1,143;
• 1901: 1,054;
• 1911: 989;
• 1921: 1,031;
• 1931: 1,105;
• 1951: 1,078;
• 1961: 991;
• 1971: 1,127;
• 1981: 1,102;
• 1991: 1,022;
• 2001: 1,143