England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Mentmore St Mary

The Parish

The parish of Mentmore lies in the extreme southeast of Buckinghamshire at the neck of that peninsula of the county which pushes into the space between neighbouring Hertfordshire & Bedfordshire, it forms a small part of the border with Hertfordshire. Mentmore is sited about 3 miles south of the market town of Leighton Buzzard and is very much an estate village, with the housing lined up along the approaching lane to Mentmore Park. Mentmore House which lies within that parkland setting is a 19th century building created for the Rothschilds. Mentmore itself is not much more than a hamlet it sits about a mile to the west of the B488 road which connects Leighton Buzzard with Ivinghoe at the foot of the Chiltern Hills. Mentmore sits upon the rather sticky clay soils of the Oxford Clay and would have been dominated by pastoral farming at the date of this transcript. Transport links were greatly enlarged during Victorian times as both the Grand Union Canal & the London to Birmingham railway line pass close by the parish. Mentmore is drained to the southwest by the Thistle Brook which joins the Thame & thence the Thames before reaching the North Sea. Mentmore is sited at around 120 metres above the sea and sits on a noticeable hillock rising 30 metres or so above the surrounding plains. Mentmore parish was of a fairly typical size for the area, it covered around 1,500 acres and supported a population of around 350 parishioners, they being split between Mentmore proper and the hamlet of Ledburn around 1 1/2 miles to the north. In Domesday times Mentmore was held by Earl Hugh of Chester and could support 10 ploughs as well as small meadows.

The Church

St Mary's church sits just to the west of the main settlement and just inside the grounds of the estate. The church has its origins in the early 13th century but has been very much modified and altered since that date. There is very little remaining of that early building, Pevsner cites just some reused capitals. The first major overhaul came during the Perpendicular period of the 14th or 15th centuries but the present building is largely a result of the extensive restoration of 1858. Pevsner comments that this was very much an "over-restoration". A low set of iron-railings borders the road where a tarred path grants access alongside some rather photogenic cottages. There are rather a lot of trees within the churchyard which rather restricts the angles available for photography.