England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Erbistock St Hilary

The Parish

The parish of Erbistock lies in the extreme east of Denbighshire, a place of the meeting of borders. Erbistock not only forms part of the border with neighbouring Flintshire but also with Shropshire and thus with England. Erbistock is located about 6 miles south of the industrial town of Wrexham and 4 miles southeast of the small market town of Ruabon. Erbistock is a fairly small and rather dispersed village built within a tight meander of the River Dee which here forms the border between England and Wales. Erbistock is sited just under a mile south of the A539 road which connects Ruabon through to Whitchurch in Shropshire. At the time of this transcript the principal economy of the parish would have been pastoral farming, the local cattle have a fine reputation for quality, the water-meadows of the Dee floodplain providing excellent grazing. The Dee drains the parish northwards through Chester to reach the Irish Sea through the Dee Estuary. Erbistock is sited at around 40 metres above the sea in unspectacular but rolling countryside, at the end of a small peninsula or higher ground which rises almost to 130 metres on the road to Ruabon. By Denbighshire standards Erbistock parish was one of the smallest in the county, it covered just under 1,500 acres and would have supported a population of close to 400 parishioners. Unusually for Wales, and reflecting its border status, Erbistock does merit a mention in Domesday Book, a tiny place held by one Reginald the Sheriff it could barely merit a single plough and was one of the smallest 20% of all settlements recorded in that book.

The Church

St Hilary's church sits right on the banks of the Dee next to the site of a former ferry, nowadays the Boat Inn. Sadly the church is not a mediaeval masterpiece but a Victorian replacement built in 1861 to replace an earlier version. The church is understatedly described by Pevsner, however, as "rather good", small praise indeed from him. Utilising motifs from both the early English Gothic and Decorated styles at least the church is true to the spirit of the era of the building it replaced. A broader aisled nave is topped by an apsed chancel, complete with Early English style lancets and the former is topped by a neat bellcote. The narrow lane through the village winds downhill to the joint site of the church and inn, the latter has a large car park. The church is reached through entrances at both eastern and western ends of the site, it is, however, rather tight against the southern edge of the churchyard removing the angles, best suited for the light, from the photographer's armoury.