Hardwick is a former

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

, now in the parish of

Bury St Edmunds Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as ''Bury,'' is a cathedral as well as market town and civil parish in the West Suffolk District, West Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St. Edmunds an ...

, in the

West Suffolk West Suffolk may refer to the following places in Suffolk, England: * West Suffolk (county), a county until 1974 * West Suffolk District, a local government district established in 2019 * West Suffolk (UK Parliament constituency), an electoral di ...

district, in the county of

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

, England. In 1971 the parish had a population of 4.

History

The name "Hardwick" means 'Herd farm'. Hardwick was an

extra-parochial area In England and Wales, an extra-parochial area, extra-parochial place or extra-parochial district was a geographically defined area considered to be outside any ecclesiastical or civil parish. Anomalies in the parochial system meant they had no ch ...

, it belonged to Bury Abbey and contained Hardwick House, it became a civil parish in 1858. In 1889 it became part of the administrative county of

and in 1894 it became part of Thingoe Rural District. In 1937 the

ecclesiastical parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

was abolished and merged with Norton. In 1974 it became part of the St Edmundsbury district in the non-metropolitan county of Suffolk. On 1 April 1988 the civil parish was abolished and the area became unparished. In 2003 the area of the former parish became part of Bury St Edmunds civil parish, in 2019 St Edmundsbury district was abolished and the area of the former parish became part of West Suffolk district.

References

Former civil parishes in Suffolk Bury St Edmunds {{Suffolk-geo-stub