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

The Parish

The parish of Babraham lies in southern Cambridgeshire not too far from the county's border with neighbouring Essex. Babraham is located roughly 6 miles southeast of the university town of Cambridge and sits immediately west of the A1307 road which links Cambridge with Haverhill in Suffolk. Babraham is a small and compact village which has grown in recent times, at the time of this transcript it was an estate village gathered around the southern edges of Babraham Hall's parkland estate; that estate has nowadays become the Babraham Research Campus which announces itself as the "UK's leading campus to support early-stage bio-science enterprise" with most of the parkland and the 19th century house part of the site. The original village High Street still remains running northeastwards from the bridge across the River Granta. Like most parishes in southern Cambridgeshire Babraham would have been an arable farming parish and whilst less land is cultivated today it remains so. Modern developments have come and some have gone, a branch railway line which once linked Linton into the main line to Cambridge has closed and been largely dismantled, to both east and south the combined A11 and A505 roads have both been upgraded to dual-carriageway highways. The Granta drains the parish northwestwards heading into the Cam before reaching Cambridge, the Cam traverses parts of Fenland before meeting the Great Ouse and the North Sea through The Wash. Babraham is sited at around 25 metres above the sea in fairly flattish terrain, standing out somewhat to the north are the Gog Magog Hills the local high point which reaches 74 metres. Babraham parish was fairly typically sized for its area covering 2,500 acres it would have supported a population of close to 200 parishioners. In Domesday Book Babraham is recorded as having sufficient population to be recorded in the top 20% of settlements, a contrast to today's village, shared between 8 landholders its assets collectively amounted to just 7 ploughs some meadows and a mill, typical of the sort of parish it remained into early modern times.

The Church

St Peter's church stood on the western edges of Babraham Hall's parkland, now it is almost engulfed by the Research Campus. Pevsner points to the use of fragments of 12th century fabric in the southern wall of the chancel, the only remains of such early origins. Both the chancel and the western tower date from the middle of the 13th century, the Early English Gothic period and both show lancet styled windows characteristic of that style. The 13th century church received a major rebuild in the early or mid 15th century when the nave was rebuilt in the Perpendicular style then fashionable, the western tower also received a new top stage with perpendicular bell-openings. Also 15th century is the southern porch whilst the  northern equivalent is from the 16th century when a clerestory was inserted to improve the internal lighting of the nave. Restorations were later than customary, the first carried out over an extended period from 1894 to 1908 whilst more modern times saw further work in 1966, neither added any radical new elements to the church. Given the complexities of transiting the Research Campus it is better to park in the village taking the footpath which parallels the Granta to the site, a distance of perhaps 300 metres. The churchyard is compact and totally bordered in thick tree cover which restricts the ability to draw back from the building, only a limited set of aspects is available for the photographer.