England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Shincliffe St Mary the Virgin

The Parish

Shincliffe is a chapelry of the greater parish of St Oswald, Durham and is located around 2 miles southeast of the city of Durham. Shincliffe was only licensed for marriages for a short period of time during the coverage of this project. Shincliffe is located astride the A177 road which heads southeastwards from Durham to the nearby A1M and onwards to Stockton Upon Tees. Shincliffe is a mining settlement consisting of two main centres of property, Shincliffe, itself, which sits on the eastern banks of the River Wear and High Shincliffe, the colliery site. Employment would have been almost totally committed to the mining of coal, supplemented with some pastoral farming. The Wear drains the parish eastwards to reach the nearby North Sea through the port of Sunderland. Shincliffe is sited at around 40 metres above the sea with High Shincliffe some 50 metres higher in gently rolling countryside with local heights rising to around 100 metres above the sea. The chapelry of Shincliffe covered around 1,400 acres of the wider parish of St Oswald and would have supported a population, at the end of this transcript period of 1,100 parishioners. Most weddings from Shincliffe would be recorded within St Oswald's registers. Like much of northern England there is no mention of Shincliffe in Domesday Book which is sketchy at best for this area.

The Church

St Mary the Virgin's church, whilst its sits almost alongside the A177 is actually best accessed from Shincliffe High Street, a sign marking the start of the pathway leading past the Church Hall to the site. The church is not the one in which these few marriages occurred having been built in 1851. The church follows the standard layout of nave, chancel and western tower, the latter with a broach spire added some 20 years after the original completion. The church was built in an Early English Gothic style showing the characteristic narrow windows of that style. Whilst clearly of little architectural interest to Pevsner, his description is limited to a mere 3 lines, the building is a peaceful and tranquil place in what was an industrial area. The pathway from the church hall leads through trees to the churchyard which has many obstructions from trees limiting the best angles for photography.