England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Chellaston St Peter

The Parish

The parish of Chellaston lies in southern Derbyshire not too far from its border with neighbouring Leicestershire. Chellaston is located roughly 4 miles south of the county town of Derby and stands on and mostly east of the A514 road which links Derby with Swadlincote and the A50 Trent Valley Expressway. Chellaston is a much changed place, at the time of this transcript it was a separate discrete village which followed a lane from the present A514 eastwards until juts beyond its church, it was surrounded by open fields. Today Derby has expanded markedly to the south such that Chellaston is now virtually a suburb and has continuous urban development to Derby. The two main drivers for Chellaston's economy where pastoral farming, it occupies a side valley of the River Trent with grazing for cattle, in addition it was once renowned for the quality of its gypsum and alabaster, the patter used throughout the district for intricate figure carving. Modern developments have come aplenty to Chellaston, the first to arrive being the Trent & Mersey Canal which linked the two rivers to create a cross-country route; more temporary was a railway line linking Derby with Coalville and Ashby de la Zouch which has closed and been largely converted to a cycleway. Today's speedy A50 is a fast dual-carriageway serving a similar process to the canal carrying traffic between the M6 in the Potteries to the M1. Chellaston's small stream drains barely a mile or two to reach the Trent from where water is carried by an easterly then northerly route to the North Sea arriving through the Humber Estuary. Chellaston is sited at around 50 metres above the sea, a height which is largely kept to for some distance around in gentle terrain. Chellaston parish was one of the county's smaller ones covering only 800 acres and supporting close to 450 parishioners. In Domesday times Chellaston was a fairly typical small rural manor, held directly by King William its assets of 6 ploughs, meadows & woodland and there was a mill.

The Church

St Peter's church stands on the southern side of the village's High Street at the point where it kinks a little to the south and School Lane forks off northeastwards. The earliest fabric identified by Pevsner's examination referred to a blocked early English Gothic doorway adjacent to the southern aisle chapel. It is likely that the main build of nave, chancel and the aisle chapel began in the late 13th century and continued into the early 14th century with a mixture of the Early English Gothic and Decorated motifs. The final build stretched into the latter half of the 14th century when the Perpendicular styled chancel was completed. Several phases of Victorian work have made notable changes to the church, the most obvious being the addition?/replacement? of the western tower in 1842, at the same event a gallery was inserted internally. In 1870 a campaign of window renewals was completed whilst a further restoration of 1884 made further changes of a more modest nature. A small set of shops sits opposite the church which a lay-by provided for parking, it may be available for brief visits otherwise there is some on-street parking to the east in Green Avenue.Opposite the shops is the lychgate forming the main entrance to the churchyard, there are trees to the northwest and a large bank to the east both of which restrict the views available and leaving only a limited set of angles for the photographer.