England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Englefield St Mark

The Parish

The parish of Englefield lies in central Berkshire roughly 6 miles west of the town of Reading. Englefield sits about a mile north of the A4 road which links Reading with Newbury and immediately west of the linking road of the A340 which connects the A4 with the Thames at Pangbourne. Englefield is an estate village with much of the parish acreage set to parkland as part of the ornamental grounds of Englefield House, a superficially mid-Victorian house sitting on the site of the recusant Englefield family who gave their name to village and parish. Like most estate parishes the local economy would have been driven by the needs of the estate and would have primarily involved arable farming. Whilst all traces of the medieval village are lost beneath the park established in the mid-19th century, a few properties line the main route inbound from the A340, the usual approach. Englefield parish is strangely shaped with a ling southern extension forming a tail, modern developments just creep into this tail in the form of Brunel's Great Western railway line from London to the southwest. Englefield is drained northwards by initially the River Bourne but this meets in quick succession the Pang and then the Thames before passing east through Reading and the capital to the North Sea. Englefield is sited at around 50 metres above the sea and sits on a low ridge of land between the valleys of Thames & Kennet, to its north land rises in gentle terrain to local high spots in the region of 85 metres. At just under 1,400 acres Englefield parish was fairly typically sized for its area within that acreage it would have supported a population of close to 350 parishioners. In Domesday times Englefield was slightly more important than today's small village, a holding of one William, son of Ansculf, and offering 13 ploughs, meadows and a mill.

The Church

St Mark's church sits within the parkland that surrounds Englefield House but as its origins lie in the early medieval period it probably marks the former village site. When the grounds were laid out it was also fashionable to make-over the local church too and externally St Mark resembles a prettified High Victorian estate church, that veneer masks a much older building revealed by Pevsner's forensic examination. Despite applying the exterior finish some traces of the Early English Gothic mark the exterior too, 2 pairs of lancets in the southern aisle wall, more of the same in the northern wall of the nave and internally a bracket enclosing an image showing 3 bands of decoration of the same styling. To this 13th century church a chantry chapel, for the reading of blessings to the Englefields, was added in the 16th century and shows flat-headed windows in a late-Perpendicular style. The Victorians certainly had an impact on the church, however, as Pevsner lists no fewer than 5 phases of Victorian and later modification, the earliest of 1857 & 1868 involved the transformation into estate church and also added, in 1868, the dominant feature of the northwestern placed tower complete with distinctive circular stair-turret, later efforts in 1874 and 1891 being addressed at restoration rather than "improvement" whilst work in the late 20th century tackled the chantry chapel. Most visitors to the church will park at the end of The Street and walk the last few yards to the church which is set in an open churchyard with no obstacles for the photographer.