England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Leckhampstead St James

The Parish

The chapelry of Leckhampstead lies in western Berkshire about 7 miles north of the town of Newbury. Leckhampstead is a detached portion of Chieveley parish. Leckhampstead is located a quarter of a mile west of the B4494 road which connects Newbury with Wantage. Leckhampstead is a small and rather linear village with most properties lining either side of a narrow lane (Shop Lane) which parallels the B4494 running north to south from a T junction. Like many communities in this area Leckhampstead was and still is largely a farming community, at the time of this transcript a more mixed farming regime would have been in place whereas today it is largely arable. Leckhampstead sits on the rising slopes of chalk downland heading northward to the crest of the Ridgeway, the chalky substrate is permeable and few watercourses follow the surface, most water drains southwards underground to the nearby River Lambourn, turning east to join the Kennet at Newbury and thence to the Thames, the capital and the North Sea. Leckhampstead is sited at around 140 metres above the sea in rolling countryside where local heights reach a further 30 metres higher within a mile or two. The chapelry was sized close to the norm for a parish in this area, covering a little over 1,700 acres it would have supported a population of around 350 parishioners. In Domesday times Leckhampstead was an equally small and rural settlement, held by Abingdon Abbey it could muster 9 ploughs and some small meadows.

The Church

St James' church sits on the eastern side of Shop Lane towards the southern end of the village. Sadly this is not the venue for these marriages but a Victorian replacement erected in the 1850s. The original church which this version replaced sat across the B4494 at Chapel Green, various sources identify it as of Saxon origin and give a date of the mid-11th century. Today's church is described by Pevsner as being "one of the most inventive" by its architect Teulon and is certainly a picturesque addition to the village landscape. The style adopted is that of the late 13th or early 14th century, the Decorated style, and utilises a distinctively banded motif of flint with broad bands of a red brick, most distinctive. The nave & chancel are topped to the west by a bellcote and to the east by a short timber turret. Whilst Shop Lane is quite narrow there is a pavement alongside the church enabling careful off-road parking. Strangely the churchyard is very narrow from north to south making the landscape perspective difficult to achieve and the western end of the church is also flush to the flint & brick wall of the roadside making the better views from outside the churchyard.