England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Little Bardfield St Katharine

The Parish

The parish of Little Bardfield lies in northwestern Essex roughly 3 miles east of the small market town of Thaxted. Little Bardfield sits about 1 mile west of the meandering B1057 road which connects Haverhill in Suffolk with Great Dunmow. Little Bardfield is a rather linear village running along an east to west trending lane from the 16th century Little Bardfield Hall & parish church eastwards for roughly a half mile, the village street parallels the small stream which drains into the River Pant. This area of the county is low-lying, fairly level and highly fertile making it the bread-basket for the county, arable crops dominate almost every acre and cereals are the main produce mostly wheat & barley with crops such as oil seed as a little variety. Little Bardfield's small stream soon reaches the Pant which takes water southeastwards, from Braintree onwards the river becomes the Blackwater continuing southeast and then south to reach the sea through the port of Maldon as the Blackwater Estuary. Little Bardfield is sited at around 70 metres above the sea in its valley setting, land rises gently westwards towards Thaxted reaching a spot height of 115 metres before that place is reached, the highest ground around here. Little Bardfield parish was typically sized for the area which has a mixture of large and standard sized parishes, Little Bardfield being one of the latter it covered just under 1,700 acres and would have supported a population of close to 350 parishioners. In Domesday times Little Bardfield was recorded together with its larger neighbour Great Bardfield, they were shared between 2 landholders (Count Eustace of Boulogne & Count Gilbert's son Richard) and it is tempting to assign each manor to one or the other, however the collective assets of 21 ploughs, extensive meadows and woodland, 4 mills and a fishery indicate highly profitable manors indeed.

The Church

St Katherine's church sits at the western end of the small village alongside the hall, it is accessed by a short dead-end spur from the lane headed westwards towards Thaxted. St Katherine is a church dating back to the earliest times of stone-built churches, the western tower being late Anglo-Saxon and probably 11th century in date, the pyramidal roof is a later addition which Pevsner is unable to date. The main body of the nave is similar in both character and age to the tower and retains Saxon-styled windows on both its northern & southern faces. The chancel, however, is later and 14th century and Decorated in style marking an expansion of the early church. That expansion was added to in the 15th century when a southern porch was added in the Perpendicular style. Two significant Victorian additions were added as part of restorations, that of 1866 added to prominent southern chancel aisle whilst that of 1894 was a more typical restoration, it is likely the pyramidal top to the tower also came in one of these phases. The church is signposted from the lane and within a few yards of turning into that lane a substantial church car park sits to the right allowing a leisurely stroll to the churchyard, for those less able one may park outside the post & rail fences which surround the churchyard. Whilst there are a few trees within the churchyard they are easily avoidable by the photographer.