England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Malpas St Oswald

The Parish

The parish of Malpas forms the southwestern corner of the county of Cheshire, it forms part of the border with both neighbouring Shropshire and also Flintshire and is close to the border with Denbighshire. Malpas, itself, is just the major settlement in the large parish which also held several major townships and many minor ones also. Malpas is a compact village sited about 6 miles northwest of the Shropshire market town of Whitchurch, it is a compact junction settlement sitting where the B5395 road from Whitchurch meets the east/west running B5069. The parish, however, covered an extensive area of southwestern Cheshire and included a small portion of Flintshire. The main economic activity of the area would have been pastoral farming on the sandstone soils it would have been mainly cattle. The parish is drained by numerous small streams which converge on the southern edge at the Wych Brook, this stream heads westwards to reach and River Dee and to exit into the Irish Sea through Chester and the Dee Estuary. Malpas town, for it is larger than a village, sits on an eminence higher than much of the parish and is sited at around 120 metres above sea level, the majority of the parish lies between 40 and 80 metres in gently rolling countryside. Even by the large standards of northern England Malpas parish was extensive, it covered in excess of 21,000 acres and supported a population of over 5,700 parishioners albeit only about 20% lived within Malpas itself. In Domesday times Malpas was held by one Robert son of Hugh and was a smaller place indeed, it could only offer 8 ploughs and small areas of meadow.

The Church

St Oswald's church sits on the northern side of the B5069 as its runs westwards out of the town, appropriately enough it is known here as Church Street. The church is impressive indeed and superficially a bold Perpendicular statement. However, as Pevsner rightly indicates there are many features on closer inspection which pre-date that great church building era and indicate at least a 13th century origin for St Oswald. However documentary sources place extensive renovation and enlargement in the late 15th and early 16th centuries and by the end of that period the church we see today was largely complete. In the early 18th century the vestry was added and as usual the Victorians had their inevitable restoration of the 1860s. The church sits in an elevated position banked by a head-height stone wall constructed of large sandstone blocks. At the western end a set of curved flags grants access through a metal kissing-gate to the churchyard. There are a few trees around but they do not unduly restrict photography.