England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Chivelstone St Sylvester

The Parish

The parish of Chivelstone is the most southerly in Devon and almost so for England with only Cornwall's Lizard Peninsula extending further south. Chivelstone is located about 6 miles southeast of the market town of Kingsbridge and sits almost 3 miles south of the A379 road which links Kingsbridge with Torcross and onwards to Totnes. Chivelstone is only a small village set just west of a crossroads of narrow lanes, the wider parish also includes settlements such as East Prawle, built around a complex set of lanes high above Prawle Point the southernmost point of the county, South Allington, just east of Chivelstone and similarly sized and Ford another hamlet sized village a mile to the north of Chivelstone. Like most Devon parishes Chivelstone parish was almost totally farmed in pastoral methods, the salt-laden air not being conducive for arable crops, cattle were the main produce of the parish. Today the area is highly dependent upon the tourist trade with also a high percentage of holiday and second homes. The South West Way National Trail wends its way through the parish on a switch-back journey from the Kingsbridge Estuary ferry to Prawle Point with East Prawle an overnight stop sought by many. For naturalists the area is of great importance for its role as a sanctuary for the declining Cirl Bunting which survived here due to the low intensity management of the land. Chivelstone is drained westwards by a small stream which makes its way to the Kingsbridge Estuary and thence to the English Channel. The wider parish holds land between sea level and 138 metres with very steep sided valleys created in periglacial times following uplift after the ice age. Chivelstone parish covered a little over 2,500 acres and would have supported a population of close to 600 parishioners. Several of the settlement mentioned above were recorded separately in Domesday Book, Chivelstone, itself, was a tiny place of just 6 households with 3 ploughs, meadows & pastures, South Allington contributed a further 2 ploughs and Ford a further 3, all of these manors being held by Iudhael of Totnes.

The Church

St Sylvester's church sits in the small village of Chivelstone on the northern side of the narrow lane which is its main west to east lane, the church sits opposite a large farm complex. Whilst the church may have originally been a cruciform structure it was almost completely rebuilt in the later medieval period and the northern transept removed, the church being tight to the southern boundary of the churchyard there could never have been a southern transept. The tower was completed first along with the chancel, Pevsner neglects to date these structures but since they pre-date the nave which is believed to have been constructed between 1536 & 1549 they must be from the very late 15th century. A through Victorian restoration is recorded from 1897. Internally the church's pulpit is a sight worthy of a visit in itself, carved from a huge single block of wood it is an impressive object. Parking in the notoriously narrow Devon lanes is always difficult and here it is so, the farmyard, on request, may offer a more satisfactory alternative. The churchyard sits high above road height with a flight of 10 steep steps to reach it from the east and a long sloping pathway rising from the west. That height difference and the church's position in the churchyard precludes any suitable imagery from any southern aspect with only those from the less-favoured north available for the photographer.