England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Boxted St Peter

The Parish

The parish of Boxted lies in northeastern Essex forming a stretch of the border with neighbouring Suffolk. Boxted is located roughly 5 miles north of the large town of Colchester and sits a couple of miles east of the A134 road that links Colchester with Sudbury. Boxted is a curiously dispersed settlement, so much so that its name actually has to be listed twice on modern Ordnance Survey mapping, once for the hamlet grouped around the church and a second time for the linear settlement lying almost a mile and a half south. In between these disparate communities lies Boxted Cross just to complete the confusion. Today the southern Boxted is very much the larger community, it sits astride the adequately named Straight Road (it follows an ancient Roman Road and is, indeed, very straight). Like most parishes in this area Boxted would have primarily been engaged in farming, indeed early gazetteers place 80% of the parish acreage as set to arable farming, whilst there are a few copses and small woodlands too many of which remain to today. The border with Suffolk, which forms the parish's northern boundary is followed by the River Stour which drains the parish eastwards passing through picturesque Dedham Vale to reach the North Sea at the twin ports of Harwich & Felixstowe. Boxted is sited at around 40 metres above the sea in gentle terrain, land is at this height or slightly above for some considerable distance. Boxted parish was fairly typically sized for this areas, covering just under 3,100 acres within that substantial acreage there would have been around 850 parishioners. In Domesday times Boxted was altogether a more sleepy place, shared by Count Eustace of Boulogne with Eudo the Steward it could only muster 10 ploughs together with the usual meadows & woodland.

The Church

St Peter's church sits together with a collection of farms and cottages quite close to the Hall, presumably the two were once in tandem. The fabric of this church is its principal attraction, the curious combination of a colourful puddingstone filled in with 16th century brick creates an interesting if somewhat eccentric mix. The church is certainly ancient with much work of the 12th century Norman Romanesque period, the western tower is the principal piece dating from this early period and shows both exposed and blocked windows of that period. Externally all else looks later but Pevsner's forensic examination finds similarly blocked Norman windows in the nave and southern arcade. The main body of the church appears to have been largely rebuilt in the typical Perpendicular era of the late 14th century with a clerestory included in that rebuild, albeit one Pevsner berates as "crude & irregular". Further work can be dated to the 17th century, a period rarely found in churches, when two dormer windows were inserted, their white dormers contrasting strongly with the basic fabric. The main Victorian restoration here fell in 1870 whilst work has continued on to the present day, the chancel roof bearing a decoration of stars on a blue background and depicting both the Hale-Bopp comet and the total eclipse of the late 1990s. Road names surrounding the church are as equally imaginative as Straight Road, there being a Church Street, Lane & Road on three sides surrounding the churchyard, Church Street being best for parking there is a set of wooden gates granting entry to the churchyard which is ample and with relatively few obstacles for the photographer.