England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Great Linford St Andrew

The Parish

The parish of Great Linford lies in northeastern Buckinghamshire, a peninsula of the county that juts between Northamptonshire & Bedfordshire, Great Linford being not too far from either neighbour. Great Linford is located roughly 2 miles southwest of the market town of Newport Pagnell and lies within the designated area of Milton Keynes New Town although it is a much more ancient settlement than that modern invention. Great Linford sits just north of the A422 road which  crosses northern Milton Keynes New Town between Newport Pagnell and Stony Stratford heading on to Buckingham. Old Maps reveal a compact mid-sized village lying beneath the modern developments, grouped south of the Grand Union Canal and the then Newport Pagnell branch railway line, most properties lining a north to south running lane south of the church. Soils in this area are clay-rich and the main farming activity would have been pastoral rather than arable with only 20% of the parish acreage set to arable in early gazetteer estimates. As already mentioned modern developments have come aplenty to the parish, the Grand Union Canal, linking London with the Midlands, came first, the branch railway line is nowadays a foot-and-cycle path and the modern M1 motorway carves its way between Great Linford and its larger neighbour Newport Pagnell and overlaid are the modern accoutrements associated with New Town development. The canal came this way because of the ease of using the valley of the River Great Ouse which drains the parish northeastwards, heading on its long journey to the North Sea arriving through the port of King's Lynn. Great Linford is sited at around 70 metres above the sea whilst land rises gently away from the Great Ouse to a general height of close to 100 metres. Great Linford parish was typically sized for its area covering just under 1,800 acres within which it would have supported a population of around 450 parishioners. In Domesday times its population was sufficiently large enough to place Great Linford amongst the largest 20% of settlements recorded within the book, however its assets, shared between 4 landholders, were more modest offering just 14 ploughs and some meadows.

The Church

St Andrew's church sits in parkland between the serried ranks of modern development and the canal & river, it is accessible only on foot from local car parks. This is a site which has been extensively dug by archaeologists which has revealed a dense and complex history of various churches overlaid one upon each other, some parts of the earlier being incorporated into subsequent editions. The earliest remaining fabric is contemporary with the Norman Conquest, 12th century in origin and Romanesque in style, the earliest church of nave and chancel lay beneath today's nave but the western tower has surviving material from that earliest church in its lowest two stages. The 13th century Early English Gothic period saw the original nave extended whilst the early half of the 14th century, the Decorated period, saw most of today's church built. Pevsner views the northern porch as the best illustration of the era's work. In the 15th century, and in the Perpendicular style, a typical clerestory was inserted to improve internal lighting and the parapet with its battlements added. The 18th century is typically an era with little church-building work but here the first decade saw the chancel rebuilt whilst in the 19th century the church saw the typical Victorian restoration, here in 1884, which mainly saw to the decaying roofing. Parking closest to the church is at the Arts Centre which requires a stroll of merely a couple of hundred metres to the churchyard through attractive parkland, once at the churchyard there are few obstacles to impede the photographer.