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

The Parish

The parish of Olney is the most northerly within the county of Buckinghamshire forming part of the boundary with neighbouring Northamptonshire and also being close to Bedfordshire. Olney is a small market town which is located about 8 miles southeast of the Northamptonshire county town of Northampton. Olney sits on the A509 road which connects Newport Pagnell through to Wellingborough at its crossing point of the Great Ouse, a crossing marked by a multi-arched bridge across river & water-meadows. Olney is part of a small extension of Buckinghamshire across the northern side of the Great Ouse which one would expect to be significant enough to form a county boundary. Olney's economy was made of three distinct tiers, a local market offering a weekly event and specialist rural services, agriculture within its bounds, both pastoral on the water-meadows of the Great Ouse and arable on drier ground and finally a flourishing lace industry based upon refugees from the Low Countries. Sadly that industry declined following mechanisation of the industrial revolution and Olney is merely a local centre and market for its hinterland today. Modern develops did come to the town, a branch line ran through en route from Northampton to Bedford but this was a victim of Beching cuts of the 1960s. The Great Ouse drains the parish eastwards and flows to the North Sea through The Wash. Olney is sited at between 50 and 80 metres above the sea, the church at the lower end and the modern western suburbs being higher, land rises steadily but spectacularly away from the river to reach local heights of close to 110 metres. As befits a market town Olney's parish was one of the larger in extent in the area, covering almost 3,400 acres it would have supported a population of close to 2,400 parishioners. Olney was equally large in Domesday times, its location as a crossing point of one of England's major rivers an important site, held by Bishop Geoffrey it was in the largest 40% of settlements recorded offering 10 ploughs extensive meadows & woodland and a mill.

The Church

St peter & St Paul's church sits at the southern end of the town close to the crossing of the Great Ouse. The church is a creation of the early 14th century, a period which saw the transition from the Decorated style into the Perpendicular. The church is typically large as befits a market town, the basic nave, chancel & western tower being augmented by aisles and arcades to accommodate the substantial congregation. Whilst Decorated style remains within the chancel, it is Perpendicular in the main albeit altered by substantial and repeated restoration. The northern aisle was rebuilt in 1807, the southern in 183, the chancel restored in 1874 swiftly followed by the first of four restorations in 1877, 1880, 1883 & 1885 - so a much altered fabric over the Georgian & Victorian periods. The church stands almost within the wateer-meadows of the Great Ouse, accessed by Church Street which curves east and then south around the churchyard from the A509. Sadly there is little room to get away from the church to adequately encompass its features without resort to specialist lenses.