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

The Parish

The parish of Dartmouth St Saviour lies in the far south of Devon about 6 miles southeast of the market town of Totnes. Dartmouth sits at the end of both A3122 (from Totnes by way of the A381) and A379 (from Plymouth through Kingsbridge) roads. Dartmouth is one of England's oldest seaports, its position in deep shelter within the ria of the River Dart providing a safe anchorage for military, civil and today pleasure craft. Dartmouth has 3 parishes and St Saviour is the one which, today, supports the central portion of the town. Dartmouth has been a port since the Middle Ages, it was the assembly point for two Crusader fleets, it held monopoly from the 12th to 15th century of the Bordeaux wine trade, was also monopoly port for the export of tin, today Dartmouth is a yachting centre par excellence and throngs with tourist brought by its attractive location. St Saviour's parish covers the central portion of the town and sits just a few yards from the Dart and its ferry to Kingswear. As a coastal community the parish is drained by numerous small, mainly under-surface, drains to the nearby Dart, the port being roughly two miles upstream from the open sea. St Saviour's parish sits between sea level and 40 metres above it, the land rises steeply away from the Dart quickly reaching 140 metres or so within a couple of miles. St Saviour's parish covered a short stretch of the Dart frontage and perhaps a couple of blocks inland, a tiny area which would have supported a population of around 2,300 parishioners. Strangely, given its importance as a port, Dartmouth is not specifically mentioned in Domesday Book.

The Church

St Saviour's church sits just a few yards from the quay on Anzac Street. The church was granted by King Edward 1 as a chapel for the harbour in 1286. By 1372 the church was substantially complete when consecrated. Most of the present exterior, however, dates from the 17th century restoration completed at the behest of the town corporation. Later still much of the fabric was replaced and the roofs reconstructed during a major restoration of the early 1890s. The church sits in an elevated site above Anzac Street, a feature of the sloping nature of the church site. Whilst there is space for photography from the north, this is often an unfavourable location due to the sun angle, from all other angles the church is tightly hemmed by both commercial and domestic properties making for a tricky subject to adequately capture.