England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Kingston Bagpuize St John the Baptist

The Parish

The parish of Kingston Bagpuize lies on the northern edge of western Berkshire forming a short stretch of the border with Oxfordshire. Kingston Bagpuize is located roughly 6 miles west of the market town of Abingdon and sits, now fortunately bypassed, on the former route of the A420 road linking Oxford with Faringdon & Swindon. Kingston Bagpuize is a village which has grown quite a bit in the 20th century, early maps show a largely linear, tadpole-shaped, village with a distinct cluster around the church with a long tail running westwards. New developments to both north & south of the former A420 have infilled considerably. Kingston Bagpuize parish is a long sliver of land extending from the village northwards to the River Thames, known here as the Isis, the point was to grant all of the differing land-usages to the parish from wet pastures near the river through to prime arable land around the village, some stone was also quarried mainly for local use. With its short frontage on the Thames the parish, today, can claim a stretch of the Thames Path National Trail with the inn at Newbridge a welcome oasis for hikers. The Isis or Thames is fed by small field drains and takes water eastwards through both Oxford and London to the North Sea. Kingston Bagpuize is sited at around 80 metres above the sea with Kingston Hill, a mile to the north, topping out at 93 metres the highest ground in a generally gentle area. The long thin parish totalled almost 1,100 acres which would have supported a population in the region of 300 parishioners. Whilst Kingston Bagpuize's 40 households made it large enough to apparently be amongst the largest 20% of settlements recorded in Domesday Book the assets shared by Henry de Ferrers and Ansculf's son William tell a slightly lesser story, 7 ploughs and some meadow albeit with a profitable fishery on the Thames hardly equate to a major settlement.

The Church

St John's church sits at the eastern end of the village on the western side of the A415 headed for Abingdon, the Abingdon Road. Whilst there was a medieval church here at one time the church that bow stands here was built midway through the transcript period and completed in 1800. The design copies that of a church built for Long Ditton in Surrey which was published just before the old church was demolished. The church is small and classical and consists of an aisleless nave with transepts and an eastern apse, the western end graced with wooden cupola standing above the doorway flanked with Doric-styled columns, a neat and small classical church. Despite the late completion date there has been time for alterations, in 1882 small Norman-styled windows were inserted above the western doorway, Pevsner in his caustic way described them merely as "atrocious". A parallel lane to the main road provides safe parking outside the churchyard which initially appears totally wooded, this is, however, merely a fringing belt as once within the church sits within open and uncluttered ground with no difficulties for the photographer.