England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Lamesley St Andrew

The Parish

The chapelry of Lamesley, its mother parish being Chester le Street, sits in the extreme north of County Durham not too far from its border with neighbouring Northumberland. Lamesley is located about 4 miles south of the industrial town of Gateshead and sits immediate south of the A1 road which links Edinburgh with London. Lamesley, itself, which grants its name to the chapelry, is a relatively small crossroads hamlet but the largest settlement within the chapelry is Kibblesworth, with smaller townships at Ravensworth & Hedley. Prior to the industrial revolution the area was a relatively lowly populated arable farming district. The discovery of coal with ironstone adjacent led to numerous shafts being sunk leading to the characteristic phenomenon of pit villages developing and rapid growth in the chapelry's population. Today the pits are closed and nearby Beamish Open Air Museum records life during that era. Modern developments abound, the London to Newcastle Upon Tyne railway line carves through just east of the village of Lamesley whilst the A1 has been diverted west of both Gateshead and Newcastle Upon Tyne as a fast, if often crowded, dual-carriageway. Indeed such is the growth of Gateshead, with the vast Team Valley Trading Estate, southwards that it has only the A1's route separating it from engulfing Lamesley village. Lamesley is drained by a tributary of that River Team, Mitcheson's Gill soon joins the Team which is often sub-surface these days, eventually meeting the Tyne west of Gateshead and thence to the North Sea. Lamesley village and its church stands at around 15 metres above the sea in generally level terrain formed as the valley of the Team, to both east and west land rises, to the east topping out at around 150 metres at Eighton Banks whilst to the west 216 metres is reached northwest of Ravensworth Grange. Roughly 6,600 acres of the vast Chester le Street parish was carved out to make Lamesley chapelry and that acreage would have supported a population of around 2,300 parishioners. North of the River Tees Domesday had no influence consequently Lamesley is not mentioned in that book.

The Church