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

The Parish

The parish of Moulsford lies in northern central Berkshire forming part of the border, here provided by the River Thames, with neighbouring Oxfordshire, indeed this area of the county was ceded to Oxfordshire as part of 1974 changes to the shires. Moulsford is located roughly 4 miles south of the market town of Wallingford and sits on the A329 road which connects Wallingford through to Reading. The Thames, here, squeezes through the "Goring Gap" to make its way through the chalk that forms both the Chiltern Hills and the Oxfordshire Downs. Today's Moulsford is a long strip of a village spreading along the A329 for almost a mile, a series of surfaced and unsurfaced lanes leading east from it to waterside properties including church & hotel. Moulsford parish was a thin strip extending westwards from the Thames onto the chalk downs to the west and this variation in land-form would have made variation in the farming practiced, cattle on the water-meadows, arable on the river terrace and sheep on the downs. Modern development also squeezed its way through the Goring Gap, Brunel's Great Western Railway from London to Bristol also making use of this breach, it's across the rive by Moulsford but nearby Cholsey acquired a station. The Thames drains the parish eastwards through Reading & the capital to the North Sea. Moulsford is sited at around 50 metres above the sea but land rises steadily onto the downs westwards reaching 186 metres on nearby Lowbury Hill and the Ridgeway National Trail. Moulsford parish was a fairly small parish of just over 1,400 acres and would have supported barely 150 parishioners. Moulsford is not specifically mentioned in Domesday Book.

The Church

St John the Baptist's church sits almost on the banks of the Thames accessed along one of the many tracks heading east from the A329, it lies toward the northern end of the village where white signs point to church & boat yard. The church of today would be almost unrecognisable by the folk married in this transcript. Little remains of the medieval as the building was largely rebuilt & restyled in the 1840s. A trace of Early English Gothic can be found in the western end where a single lancet remains below the wooden bell-turret. Almost everything else, including the shingled broach spire added to that turret, dates from the 1840s and whilst a pretty and effective design externally it also included a rather bleak white-washed interior. The narrow lane leads toward the church with that western end facing you as a landmark, a small car park sits just before the turning to the boat yard. The churchyard has a few trees but mainly to the church's north leaving the better angles for the photographer.