England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Davenham St Wilfrid

The Parish

The parish of Davenham lies almost centrally within Cheshire. Whilst the village of Davenham grants its name to the parish it is but a small place within a broad extant of the county's acreage. Davenham is located just 2 miles south of the town of Northwich and sits on the A533 which connects Northwich with Middlewich. Once a small and discrete village Davenham has, over the years, become just a southern suburb to Northwich as that town has expanded across the River Dane. The economy of this area of the county has been dominated by the extraction and purification of salt since Roman times, previously by evaporation in sun-warmed pans the industrial age saw the development of fired extractors which, according to early gazetteers, "the smoke blackens everything on the face of the land". Salt works employed most of the parish population whilst for those in farming the cattle underpinning the local dairy industry provided some variation. Modern developments have come in abundance to this area, the Trent & Mersey Canal together with the Valeroyal Cut came firstly soon superceded by the rail line from Birmingham to Liverpool, in more recent times the modern M6 motorway skims the extreme east of Davenham parish. Davenham is drained northwestwards by the River Dane which reaches the Mersey to the south of Runcorn and then to the Irish Sea through the twin ports of Liverpool & Birkenhead. Davenham is sited at around 30 metres above the sea in the centre of Cheshire's main plain, land rises only gently west of the Valeroyal Cut to reach almost 70 metres close to nearby Whitegate. Cheshire is characterised by extensive parishes, often slit into chapelries, Davenham parish was typical of this type, covering just over 8,900 acres it would have supported a population of around 5,300 parishioners, most of whom would have been in Northwich, a chapelry licensed for marriage which will have its own page within this project. In Domesday times several manors were recorded which lie within the bounds of Davenham parish all were holdings of Richard de Vernon, collectively these holdings could muster just 9 ploughs, the usual meadows & woodland, the whole being very modest holdings.

The Church

St Wilfrid's church sits at the eastern end of Davenham village on the northern side of Church Street. Sadly this church is not some medieval masterpiece nor, indeed, the venue for these marriages. Today's St Wilfrid is the result of many phases of rebuild & restoration in Victorian times. The core of today's church was built in the early 1840s which rebuilt everything except the western tower. That tower was replaced by the present tower in 1851 with its inset spire being added 9 years later. Transepts were added and the chancel extended in 1870 and the latter further extended in 1908 to arrive at today's final building. Church Street has street parking to the west of the site, the churchyard is raised above road level with steps rising within a lychgate to enter. The church is strangely positioned within that churchyard being almost flush with the southern edge, a situation which makes achieving a satisfactory landscape image impossible from within the churchyard and barely adequate from across the narrow lane. On cloudy days better views may be obtained from the north.