England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Upton St Mary

The Parish

The parish of Upton, also known as Overchurch, lies in the northwest of Cheshire on the Wirral peninsula and not too far from Cheshire's Irish Sea coast. Upton is located about 3 miles west of the industrial town & port of Birkenhead, it was formerly a separate village but today is contiguous with its larger neighbour albeit separated by the modern M53 motorway. Upton sits on the A551 road which connects Wallasey with Heswall. At the time of this transcript Upton would have been a small rural village dominated by farming, largely pastoral on the heavy clay soils. Today Upton is little more than a suburb for Birkenhead and the greater Merseyside conurbation with good communication links to its larger neighbours and a semi-rural feel it is an attractive commuter settlement and there are many modern developments enlarging the village. What little surface drainage there is makes its way northwards via the Greasby Brook to reach the nearby Irish Sea. Upton is sited at around 30 metres above the sea in generally level or gentling undulating terrain. The parish of Upton was one of the smaller in its county, it covered just over 900 acres, small even by southern standards, and supported a population of just over 200 parishioners. In Domesday times Upton was held by one William Malbank and had few resources, just a pair of ploughs and a small meadow.

The Church

St Mary's church stands at the heart of the oldest parts of Upton on the junction of Church Road and Ford Road. Sadly this church is not a mediaeval original but a construction of the mid-Victorian era. Built in 1868 at the expense of the inhabitants of Upton Manor it is very much a church of its era. The church clearly lacks features to interest Pevsner as his account merits just a few short descriptive lines and little comment. The church sits in a tight cramped site behind a local sandstone wall, there are few good angles in which images may be obtained and the best are from outside the tight churchyard.