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

The Parish

The parish of Egremont lies in western Cumberland not too far from its Irish Sea coast. Egremont is located about 4 miles south of the port of Whitehaven and on the A595 coastal main road which connects Whitehaven with Barrow in Furness. Egremont is a small market town, the market being long-standing, which has now been bypassed by the busy road and consists largely of a single main street rising from the crossing of the River Ehen on the northern banks of which it stands. Egremont has a long history, the Normans built a castle here in 1120 to complement their priory at nearby St Bees, a simple motte and bailey, it is today much ruined and maintained as a municipal garden. As well as supporting its pastoral farming hinterland with crafts and specialist trades, Egremont was an industrial centre of itself, weaver of linen & sailcloth as well as paper making and tanning were active trades. The town sits close to substantial deposits of ironstone which was also extensively worked being moved to Whitehaven once that industrial centre had been created. Egremont is drained southwestwards by the Ehen, older sources name it the Eden but it is Ehen on Ordnance Survey maps,  which reaches the nearby Irish Sea through the site of Sellafield Nuclear Power Station. Egremont is sited at between 40 metres, by the Ehen, rising to 60 metres in its northern and more modern  developments, land actually rises toward the sea reaching 117 metres on Watson Hill but it is eastwards that one finds the western edge of the Lake District National Park and here land reaches 354 metres on Kinniside Common some 3 1/2 miles east of Egremont. By Cumberland standards Egremont parish was fairly limited in extent, the county has many vast parishes, it covered close to 2,700 acres and would have supported a population of around 1,700 parishioners. Domesday Book has no entries on the western coast of Cumberland, despite their presence as early as 1120, the book has no reference to Egremont.

The Church

St Mary's church lies in the heart of the town a short way up the slope from the river crossing and in the side-street of Church Street. The original church on this site was demolished during the Victorian era, it was described, rather disparagingly as "plain and uninteresting" but was almost certainly largely built in the early 13th century in the Early English Gothic style, the eastern end being graced by 4 lancet windows of that style. Perhaps in homage the present church, built between 1881 and 1883 deploys that same style albeit in a Victorian reincarnation. Needless to say iut is not the venue of these marriages which would have been in the former church. The church is unusual in having the tower paced at the northwestern corner rather than the usual western end. Despite it slightly urban setting, there is parking on Church Street, the church has many mature trees around it which do somewhat restrict the views available for photography.