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

The Parish

The parish of Rockcliffe lies in the extreme north of Cumberland forming a stretch of the county's coastline with the Solway Firth. Rockcliffe is located roughly 5 miles northwest of the city of Carlisle and sits a mile west of the A74 road which connects Carlisle with Glasgow. Rockcliffe is a small village on the northern banks of the River Eden, a T-shaped settlement with a riverside lane and inland extension. Rockcliffe parish sits enclosed between the courses of the Rivers Eden and Esk and sits upon the sediments deposited by these rivers as they flow into the Solway Firth. The Eden was navigable for small boats to Rockcliffe so a small port developed. Much of the parish is rich pastureland on the sediments but the western fringes bordering the Solway are more traditional marshland which would have been exploited for wildfowling, reed harvesting and fish & shell-fisheries. Modern developments have come to Rockcliffe in abundance, the first to arrive being the West Coast main railway line between London and Glasgow which slices through the parish, to the east of Rockcliffe now runs the modern M6 motorway also head for Scotland from Carlisle. The low lying flat land has also proven popular for light industrial development as Carlisle has expanded. The twin rivers drain the parish into the nearby Solway Firth and thence to the Irish Sea. Rockcliffe is sited at around 10 metres above the sea in largely flat terrain where a few spots just breach the 20 metre contour. Rockcliffe parish, like many northern parishes, was extensive covering just over 4,000 acres which would have supported a population of close to 800 parishioners. This far to the north in England is beyond Domesday coverage so Rockcliffe has no entry in that book.

The Church

St Mary's church sits almost on the banks of the Eden on the southern side of the village. This is not the church in which these marriages would have taken place, it was built to replace the medieval predecessor in 1848. The southern porch-tower took longer to complete and was finished in 1881 only to be struck by lightning in 1901 and requiring a rebuild. The church uses the early 14th century Decorated style as its main theme. At the churchyard gates there is a triangular parking area where the lane from Carlisle performs a right-angled bend around the site, ahead is a footpath and cycleway along the Eden shoreline. The gates are shrouded in thick foliage, a theme which is repeated within the churchyard itself. The photographer will require patience to identify the best viewpoints in order to achieve satisfactory images.