England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Aldworth St Mary

The Parish

The parish of Aldworth lies in northern central Berkshire about 3 miles west of the small town of Goring. Aldworth is a small and scattered village with its notional centre sitting on the B4009 road which connects Goring through to Newbury. Besides Aldworth, itself, there are satellite settlements at Hungerford Green & Four Points making for a rather dispersed parish. Aldworth sits high on the Berkshire Downs, an area with a long history of settlement, just to its south lies a stretch of the enigmatic Grim's Ditch believed to be an Iron Age border marker. At the time of this transcript the chalk downland would have abounded with both sheep and rabbits, the thin soils then being unsuitable for arable cultivation, today with modern machinery & fertilisers the landscape is large filled with cereal fields. Drainage on the porous chalk is largely sub-surface with water trending eastwards to emerge into the nearby River Thames. The Thames makes its way through the capital to the North Sea. Aldworth is sited at around 150 metres above the sea with land rising to the northwest onto the open Downs reaching 186 metres on nearby Lowbury Hill. Aldworth parish was fairly typically sized for this area, covering just over 1,800 acres it would have supported a population of close to 300 parishioners. In Domesday time Aldworth was an equally small rural settlement, held by a goldsmith, Theodric it could offer just 5 ploughs and a small patch of woodland.

The Church

St Mary's church sits within Aldworth on the western side of the circle of lanes that connect Aldworth with Hungerford Green. The church has its origins in the late 13th or more likely early 14th century. The western tower squat & blocky, has lancet windows from the early English Gothic period whilst most of the remaining fabric is the later Decorated style. A documented re-dedication ceremony took place in 1315 which Pevsner refers to the completion of the present chancel, a date consistent with its style. Like most churches later work has embellished and restored the basic fabric, the eastern wall was largely rebuilt in brick around the turn of the 18th century whilst a series of restoration between 1845 & 1878 added a southern porch, the vestry & the unusual pyramidal roof to the tower. It is internally, howver, that St Mary has its most meaningful fame, the 8 monuments to the de la Beche family created between the early and mid 14th centuries are worthy of a look despite their damage during the Reformation and subsequent restoration. The church sits at a junction of lane & footpath accompanied by a farm, the site is elevated above road level and a short flight of shallow steps leads up ti the gate in the surrounding post & rail fence. The churchyard is relatively open with only minor obstacles for the photographer.