Hailey is a village to the west of Oxfordshire, very near Witney. When the first church was built here in 1761, it was intended as a chapelry to Witney, but in 1854, Hailey and the neighbouring village of Crawley (which had also been a chapelry of Witney) were united to create the new parish of Hailey and Crawley. In 1982, Hailey and Crawley were united with Witney for a new Team
Ministry there.
The registers of Hailey are unusual in that they are closely linked with both Hailey itself and the village of Crawley. Originally there were separate baptism and burial registers for each church, but eventually, one register was used for both of them. Furthermore, because both places were only chapelries of Witney until 1854, no marriages before that date were recorded there, and after 1854, only one set each of marriage and banns registers were used for both churches.
The records, therefore, of Hailey with Crawley, have been catalogued as follows: all records which only concern Crawley (which comprise some baptism registers, some registers of services, and a few loose papers) have been listed separately as PAR 77; all records which only concern Hailey, or which concern the united parish of Hailey with Crawley, have been listed here. Where necessary, cross-references between the collections are provided.
The papers of Hailey with Crawley have been deposited at various times. Several deposits were made with the Bodleian Library in 1979, 1980, 1982 and 1983, and some directly with Oxfordshire Archives in 1979, 1980, 1982, 1990 and 1992, which were assigned the Accession Numbers 1684, 1706, 2041, 2362, 3165 and 3515. Of these, Acc. 1684 and 1706 were catalogued as part of Misc. Witney, Acc. 2041 as Hailey P.C. and Acc 640 as Hilt.
Recatalogued by Robin Darwall-Smith in May 1996 with addition by Alison Smith in July 2024.