England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Yattendon St Peter & St Paul

The Parish

The parish of Yattendon lies in western Berkshire roughly 6 miles northeast of the town of Newbury. Yattendon sits about 2 miles southeast of the meandering B4009 road which connects Newbury through to Streatley & Goring. Yattendon is a small compact village, an estate village with the grounds of Yattendon Court taking up much of the parish acreage. The village has been heavily influenced by the Arts & Crafts movement which has influenced property design, including that of the church, as well as being a centre for the production of repousse copper-work. Property is tightly clustered around the main junction of the village with a tail eastwards towards Yattendon Court. Early gazetteers estimate that over 80% of the parish acreage was set to arable with woodland as the next largest component. Modern developments have come to the parish, a half mile south of the village runs the modern M4 motorway running between London & Bristol. Yattendon is drained southwards and then east by the infant River Pang, as the village name suggests the Pang meets the Thames at Pangbourne west of Reading, the Thames flows through the capital to the North Sea. Yattendon is sited at around 110 metres above the sea, land steadily rises westwards, the highest local feature being the hill-fort topped Grimsbury Castle about 3 miles southwest which tops out at 158 metres. Yattendon parish was fairly typically sized for a southern arable parish, covering close to 1,400 acres it would have supported a population of around 250 parishioners. Domesday Yattendon was a similar rural holding of one Ansculf's son William offering 5 ploughs, a small meadow but did possess a mill.

The Church

St Peter & St Paul's church sits between the main centre of the village and Yattendon Court opposite Church Lane on the northern side of Yattendon Road. The core of the church is a late Perpendicular medieval building dated tentatively by Pevsner to c1450, the core is a simple aisleless nave and chancel in one piece. Pevsner was impressed with the roof structure with both tie-beams and collar-beams on arched braces. Overlaid upon this medieval structure are the works of three major Victorian pieces of work, the first of 1858 was a fairly typical Victorian restoration which revealed the intricacies of the roofing. The second was in 1881 and the work of the Arts & Crafts guild formed at Yattendon Court which added both the timber porch and the vestry as well as restoring the chancel, the final act of the guild was to rebuild the western tower in 1896 topping it with the broach spire we see today. Yattendon Road is of sufficient width to allow on-road parking outside the churchyard which has a low wooden picket fence around it. Sadly for the photographer the western end is embedded within trees restricting views of the tower but all other favoured southern aspects are available.