England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Bakewell All Saints

The Parish

The parish of Bakewell lies in upland Derbyshire, the parish covers an extensive area of moors and dales centered on the ancient market town of Bakewell itself. Nestled in the valley of the River Wye and about 25 miles northwest of Derby, Bakewell is one of the major centres of the Derbyshire Dales and popular with tourists. The parish is wide in extent, roughly 70,000 acres and much is put to sheep, the bulk of the land being held of the Dukes of Rutland and Devonshire. The town of Bakewell grew up along the busy A6 road which connects Derby to Manchester and is the sight of mineral springs. Nowadays it is perhaps more famous for giving its name to a cake. Bakewell is about 172 metres above sea-level, seemingly quite low but is surrounded by hills rising almost to 300 metres. Bakewell predates Domesday being well established as a settlement by Saxon times; there is an extensive reference made in the Domesday Book and there are Saxon remains in All Saint's church. This was a well-populated market town with roughly 10,000 parishioners.

The Church

All Saints church is situated to the west of the centre of the town, appropriately in the space between North Church St and South Church St. The building is sited just of the B5055 which runs west from Bakewell towards Monyash. As already indicated above All Saints church is an ancient building there are fragments from a Saxon building, extensive remains of a Norman building similar in size to present one, and of course, the modern rather spectacular 13th century (in the main) cruciform building. All Saints is a large and spectacular building - almost 150 feet in length - which dominates its market town.