England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Foremark St Saviour

The Parish

The parish of Foremark lies in southern Derbyshire fairly close to both the border with Leicestershire and also with that with Staffordshire. Foremark is located about 6 miles northeast of the Staffordshire brewing town of Burton upon Trent and sits on the southern banks of the River Trent in an area largely devoid of significant roads, the closest being 3 miles east namely the A514 connecting Derby with Swadlincote. Foremark is an estate parish with most land held by a single landowner no distinct village has developed and the parish is dominated by the estate of Foremark Hall, seat of the Burdett family since the 16th century. Besides the estate and its grounds Foremark merely has a scatter of farms and cottages as well as the hamlet of Ingleby to its east. The rich pastureland of the Trent flood-plain led to Foremark having primarily a pastoral farming regime but the affairs of Foremark estate largely dictated the parish economy. The Trent drained the parish eastwards on its long journey to the North Sea reaching it through the Humber Estuary. Within Foremark parish the Trent has formed something of a river cliff as it bent south to come against harder sandstones, Foremark is sited at between 40 and 65 metres above the sea with land continuing to rise away from the river to local heights of just over 100 metres. Foremark parish was fairly typically sized for a lowland Derbyshire parish, covering close to 2,000 acres (including Ingleby) it would have supported close to 200 parishioners. In Domesday times Foremark was held by one Nigel of Stafford, a small place offering just a pair of ploughs, the usual meadows & woodland but there was a mill.

The Church

St Saviour's church sits up on the hill to the southeast of the grounds of the Hall and is accessed from the main lane running parallel to the Trent by a roughly surfaced track, a public footpath which heads over the hill to Foremark Reservoir. Foremark's original parish church stood between Foremark and Ingleby close to the Trent but the present church was erected at the expense of the Burdett family in 1662. Churches of the 17th century are fairly rare and Pevsner consequently finds St Saviour "uncommonly interesting". The church follows the standard layout of nave & chancel with a western tower and is styled in the Gothic tradition. Details replicate all three classic styles, early English, Decorated & Perpendicular, with the emphasis on the first and last of these. The rough track to the church is drive-able with care and there is ample space to park by the churchyard, sadly the church sits close to the southern boundary of the churchyard and has many trees stealing the optimum aspects on a sunny day and making for a difficult subject to adequately capture.