England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Sulhamstead Bannister St Michael

The Parish

The parish of Sulhamstead Bannister, a "p" sometimes comes and goes in its name, lies in southern Berkshire not too far from its border with neighbouring Hampshire. Sulhamstead Bannister, one of two Sulhamsteads with Sulhamstead Abbots, is located roughly 7 miles southwest of the county town of Reading and sits about a mile south of the A4 road which links Reading with Newbury. Both Sulhamsteads form thin strips running southeast from the River Kennet almost to the county border. The small settlement of Sulhamstead Bannister Upper End was the centre of the parish and held the church, it was a tint place of a few farms and cottages lining St Michael's Lane. Like most parishes in this area a mixed farming regime applied, pastures by the Kennet and arable on drier land. Modern developments have come to the parish, the Kennet & Avon Canal built to improve navigation along that river follows the valley through the norther tip of Sulhamstead Bannister parish. The Kennet drains the parish northeastwards to meet the Thames at Reading, thence through the capital to the North Sea. Sulhamstead Bannister is sited at around 90 metres above the sea, a general height level in the area away from the Kennet's valley where 100 metres is occasionally touched around nearby Padworth Common. At just 576 acres Sulhamstead Bannister was one of the smaller rural parishes in the land, that acreage would have supported a population, nevertheless, of around 300 parishioners. Neither Sulhamstead is mentioned in Domesday Book,

The Church

St Michael's church stood on the eastern side of St Michael's Lane in Sulhamstead Bannister Upper End. Of the medieval version little is recorded, the church was extensively, almost completely, rebuilt in 1815 in a Victorianised Gothic style and consisted of nave with lower chancel and was topped at the western end with a wooden bell-turret. Given the small size of the congregations and close proximity of Sulhamstead Abbots the two parishes were merged and Sulhamstead Bannister church was the victim being demolished in 1966. The graveyard remains with its monuments sitting behind a decorative iron fence, the verge is widened to permit off-road parking for visitors wishing to commemorate their ancestors.