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

The Parish

The parish of Belchamp St Paul lies in the extreme north of Essex forming s short stretch of the county's border with neighbouring Suffolk. Belchamp St Paul is located roughly 3 miles southeast of the small Suffolk town of Clare, indeed such is the lack of significant numbered roads in this area that that too is the distance to the closest, the A1092 road linking Clare with Long Melford. Belchamp St Paul is a rather linear village strung out for a half mile or so along a lane headed for Great Yeldham. The Belchamp prefix applies to several parishes in this area and is believed to be a reference by the Normans to the extreme fertility of the area. This is Essex's bread-basket devoted to arable fields, often vast and hedgerow-less, growing predominantly wheat and barley. Several small brooks, eventually merging as the Belchamp Brook drain the parish eastwards eventually meeting the River Stour close to Sudbury, the Stour largely forms the Essex-Suffolk boundary for much of its course before entering the North Sea between the twin ports of Felixstowe and Harwich. Belchamp St Paul is sited at around 70 metres above the sea in rather gentle terrain, there is a patch of higher ground reaching 85 metres to the northwest which is the highest ground for many a mile. Covering almost 2,600 acres Belchamp St Paul parish was toward the larger end of the scale in size for this area, that acreage would have supported a population of around 700 parishioners, Belchamp St Paul despite its Norman appellation is not mentioned in Domesday Book.

The Church

St Andrew's church sits in splendid isolation around a mile northeast of the main crossroads of the village, accompanied merely by a farm and overlooking vast arable fields, it stands on the western side of Church Street. Whilst the sits has undoubtedly had a church since early times today's church can be confidently aged by documentation recording its building between 1458 and 1490, during the great church-building era of the Perpendicular. It is quite a rarity in being built in one single phase to an integrated design comprising an arcaded nave, chancel and western tower albeit there are building scars which once indicated the presence of a transept now gone. Two main periods of restoration are the only significant changes from the original build, the first of 1872 saw fit to extend the northern chancel aisle to form a vestry whilst that of 1901-3 tackled difficulties with the safety of the western tower. The verge outside the churchyard seems well-used for parking as traffic is fairly light along this lane. The tile-topped brick walling is pierced at its southern end by a pair of broad wooden gates, once within there no obstacles whatsoever to deter the photographer.