England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Cheshire St Martin

The Parish

The city of Chester is one of the ancient places of England, supposedly pre-Roman in origin it was developed as a Roman settlement to hold the northwest and as a base for expeditions into northern Wales. The city is located in the west of the county of Cheshire and it forms part of the county border with neighbouring Flintshire. Chester sits at the junction of several major roads, it is roughly 17 miles south of the port of Liverpool and 36 miles southwest of the industrial city of Manchester. Chester is one of England's walled cities and those walls are still a feature of the city and a tourist attraction in themselves. Chester is the county capital of Cheshire and grew as a port and market centre for the region, it is sited at the end of navigation of the River Dee which flows through its heart, although problems of silting lent the necessity to canalise and the Ellesmere canal connects Chester with the Mersey and Liverpool. Chester is divided into 10 parishes of which St Martin was one of the smaller of the city's parishes supporting a population of around 500 parishioners. St Martin parish had two distinct areas within the walled city, the main portion of the parish occupied the southwest of the cuty bordering the city's horse racing circuit whilst a small detached area sat in the northwest. Today Chester is a bustling city and a tourist attraction for its history and architecture, the galleried rows being a major attraction. In Domesday times the city was shared between the Bishop of Chester, Earl Hugh of Chester and the King himself, whilst the book does not identify the individual assets this was a wealthy and prosperous place even then

The Church

St Martin's church was a victim of the mid-20th century's traffic schemes having been closed in 1963 and demolished in 1969 to make way for the city's inner ring road, it is memorialised in St Martin's Gate one of the main gates through the city's walls. The church is first mentioned in documents dated c1260 it was described in the 18th century as "a remarkably small but very neat structure pointed with stone at the angles and finishings". By 1721 the church had fallen into decay and a program of rebuilding was necessary to bring it back to good order. That rebuild was almost complete from the foundations upwards so little of the medieval remained above ground. The fate of St Martin came under threat as early as 1842 when the parish was united with St Bridget, despite this the church was enlarged in 1882 but the 1960s saw its fate sealed.