England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Farndish St Michael

The Parish

The parish of Farndish lies in the extreme northwest of Bedfordshire forming a stretch of the county's border with neighbouring Northamptonshire. Farndish is located roughly 4 1/2 miles southeast of the market town of Wellingborough and sits a quarter of a mile east of the B569 road which links Rushden with Wollaston. Farndish is a tiny place in a mini-parish, a short run of properties lying along Irchester Road. Much of the area is farmland with early gazetteers estimating it weighed towards arable by 3:1, if anything that bias is stronger today. Farndish is drained northwards by small brooks which feed into the nearby River Nene to the west of Rushden, the Nene heads through Peterborough, across the Fens and into the North Sea through The Wash. Farndish is sited at around 80 metres above the sea on ground steadily rising away from the Nene valley, to the south a few spots within a couple of miles breach the 100 metre contour in gently undulating terrain. Farndish parish is probably the smallest in extent within its county covering merely 680 acres and supporting fewer than 100 parishioners. In Domesday time Farndish was equally small, it recorded merely 10 households, shared between William Peverel and one Azur's son Henry it offered just 5 ploughs and some small meadows.

The Church

St Michael's church sits on the eastern side of Irchester Road towards the northern end of the short run of properties that line it. The church is now managed by the Churches Conservation Trust due to the tiny congregation who mainly use the other nearby churches. Whilst most of the fabric is from the later medieval periods the church does have a survival from earlier times, the southern doorway which Pevsner places as c1210 in the Early English Gothic period. Its northern equivalent is now blocked and carries insufficient details to date it to the same early time but that is probably its origin. Using the window styling Pevsner places the nave into the early 14th century Decorated period whilst the chancel and western tower show styling from the 15th century Perpendicular era. For once Pevsner fails to record a Victorian restoration so if one occurred it was light and sensitive. The church sits at the junction of Irchester Road with a dead-end lane, the junction carries only intermittent traffic and parking is acceptable. The church is screened from the road by thick tree cover with the gates shaded from the same. Given the compact churchyard and surrounding trees there are few spots where one can gain sufficient distance so angles must be chosen carefully by the photographer.