England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
West Challow St Laurence

The Parish

The chapelry of West Challow, its mother parish being Letcombe Regis, lies in western Berkshire roughly 2 miles west of the market town of Wantage. West Challow sits a quarter miles southwest of the A417 road which links Wantage with Faringdon. West Challow is a small and compact village roughly oblong in shape and leaned over to the east with most properties enclosed within the outer boundaries of that oblong of lanes. West Challow sits on lower ground within the Vale of the White Horse on clay bed-rock which was difficult to work in early times leading to pastoral farming dominating at the time of this transcript, with modern machinery and fertilisers more arable has crept into the mix. Modern developments have come and gone, the Wilts & Berks Canal once linked Wantage and Swindon and passed just south of West Challow has been closed (in 1914) and is disused, vague plans to restore the canal are impeded by over-building especially through Swindon. West Challow is drained northwards by small brooks such as the Childrey Brook which heads to join the Thames  at Abingdon, the Thames takes water eastwards through to the capital and ultimate to the North Sea. West Challow is sited at around 80 metres above the sea but is overlooked to the south by the chalk escarpment of the Downs, topped by the Ridgeway National Trail, Sparsholt Down, to the southwest, reaches 242 metres as the local high spot. Around 666 acres were assigned to West Challow from the wider parish of Letcombe Regis which would have supported a population of close to 250 parishioners. In Domesday times West Challow was a holding of Amesbury Abbey offering just 4 ploughs and a small meadow, a small rural farming community, then as now.

The Church

St Laurence's church sits on the southern edge of the small village accessed from Otchard Gardens. Like many small rural churches St Laurence is a creation of the 12th century, a simple undivided church with nave and chancel a single chamber. The northern doorway and the font are testament to its Norman Romanesque origins. There must have been issues with the first build as during the late 13th century much of the eastern end of the church was rebuilt in an Early English Gothic style, a 2-light east window being added along with a characteristic lancet, at the western end the bellcote was raised, it includes one of the earliest extant bells in the land dated 1283. The Perpendicular period saw the northern porch added whilst the now-blocked southern door was inserted into the nave in the 16th century. Two Victorian restorations of the 19th century are recorded, that of 1857 being a general refresh whilst the second of 1892 was concerned more with the internal fittings. A final mid-20th century restoration of the church is responsible for much of what we see today. Fairview leads northwest from Orchard Gardens, where careful parking may be sought, with the churchyard to its west, a single large tree to the southwest of the church will give issues but most angles are available to the photographer.