England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Plympton St Mary

The Parish

The parish of Plympton St Mary lies in the extreme southwest of Devon roughly 5 miles northeast of the port of Plymouth. Plympton sits on the former route of the A38 road which connects Plymouth with Exeter, that road has been downgraded to the B3416 and the modern A38 expressway bypasses the town to its south. Plympton has a longer history than its nowadays much larger neighbour, in the early Middle Ages it was a town & port of much greater importance than Plymouth. Created a borough by Henry I in the early 12th century. An Augustinian priory founded in 1121 was an important land owner for much of this area of southwestern Devon and centred its operations upon  the parish of St Mary. It is certainly unusual for a smallish market town to hold two distinct parishes, the smaller St Maurice being formed as a tiny area of the former borough whilst St Mary incorporates much of the remainder of the town as well as the rural area containing the villages of Ridgeway, Underwood, Colebrook, Hemerdon, Sparkwell, Venton, and Lee Mill Bridge. Whilst Plymouth grew with its naval connections, Plympton remained a small port and market town. It also exploited its geology with slate & paving stone being quarried as well as extraction of the typical copper & tin mines of the district. The wider parish would have primarily been used for the typical pastoral farming regime of western Devon, with dairy cattle the main component. Its coastal situation also made fishing and shell-fisheries important for a diverse economy. Modern developments have arrived in the town, Brunel's Great Western Railway passing through en route from London to Cornwall and the relatively recent upgrading to of the A38 to neat motorway standard has certainly helped to improve the traffic situation in the town. Today's Plympton is, however, almost engulfed by the spread of Plymouth's suburbs across the River Plym making it an eastern part of a substantial urban conurbation stretching for almost 10 miles from the western edges of Saltash in Cornwall through to Plympton's eastern edges. A small fast flowing stream the Troy runs through the centre of town drainig the parish into the nearby River Plym and hence the English Channel. Plympton is sited at between sea level and almost 115 metres, at some properties in Langage, the wider parish rising to well over 250 metres on the southern edges of nearby Dartmoor. Plympton St Mary was considerably the larger of the twin parishes, covering a little over 9,500 acres it was one of the larger in its county and within that extensive acreage would have been supported close to 2,700 parishioners. In Domesday times Plympton was counted as a single royal-held entity and was already one of the largest 20% of settlements recorded by population, its assets of just 18 ploughs together with meadows, pastures & woodland belie its importance at the time.

The Church

St Mary's church sits on the town's Market Road in what Pevsner describes as an "unprepossessing and much rebuilt industrial area" in an area once the stronghold of the Augustinian Priory's lands. St Mary began life as a priory chapel and thus subservient to St Maurice but has emerged from the centuries as the more important of the town's two churches. Documentary evidence gives a dedication for the church of 1311, but this is at odds with much of the age of today's church. The outer northern aisle is the oldest portion of today's building and its windows & piscina are also of a similar early 14th century date. The majority of the church, however, is in the Perpendicular style of the early 15th century with Pevsner edging toward the first half of that century. The unusual presence of an outer aisle to the north is then complemented by a similar outer aisle to the south which comes from the latter half of the 15th century. The presence of aisles and outer aisle makes the church interior rather "roomy" as well as extending the ground coverage of what is an extensive building. For once Pevsner fails to mention a Victorian restoration, so if one occurred it was clearly light and sensitive. Market Road can carry some street parking if fortunate otherwise it is best to find a town car park and visit on foot. The main entrance to the mainly hedged churchyard is from Market Road where a bollard-ed driveway crosses to the church, the churchyard is extrenely extensive giving free rein to the photographer from almost every angle.