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

The Parish

The parish of Great Dunmow lies in western Essex roughly 12 miles northwest of county administrative centre of Chelmsford. Great Dunmow sits on the former route of the A120 road linking Braintree with Bishops Stortford in Hertfordshire, that road now bypasses to the south. Great Dunmow is a large town and formerly a formal market town which owes ots foundation to a crossroads of ancient Roman Roads which met here at the crossing of the River Chelmer. Great Dunmow is usually acknowledged to be the site of a Roman station, Caesaromagus. From these early beginnings the town grew rapidly, by Domesday times it already had 131 households and was well within the parameters defining the largest 20% of settlements by population. Great Dunmow was granted its market in 1250 and through the medieval period it flourished as the centre for trade & specialist skills in western Essex. In addition to its market functions some manufacturing of baize cloth and blankets was carried out as well the normal trades of a market town in a rural area, tanning & brewing. The extensive wider parish held some of the most fertile land in the country and was heavily exploited by both arable, in the main, and pastoral farming, mainly in the Chelmer flood-plains. In more modern times the market has declined due to competition from both Braintree and Bishops Stortford such that it has now terminated. Modern developments have come aplenty, the railway line between Bishops Stortford and Braintree has closed and been exploited as the route for the new A120, a fast dual-carriageway highway. Great Dunmow's proximity to London's third airport at Stansted has grown the town in more modern times as has its good road communications, extensive modern developments surround the ancient core of the town. Today's Great Dunnow is a stretched ellipse paralleling the Chelmer for over 2 miles. Great Dunmow is drained southwards by the Chelmer which passes through Chelmsford  and onward eastwards to the sea arriving through the port of Maldon, the Blackwater Estuary and finally the North Sea. Great Dunmow is sited on rising ground from 50 metres above the sea to 90 metres at its westernmost suburbs, a few spots touch the 100 metre contour to its northwest in generally gentle terrain. As already mentioned Great Dunmow parish was very extensive, it covered almost 6,700 acres making it one of the largest in its county, that acreage would have supported a population of close to 2,800 parishioners. Domesday Great Dunmow was recorded together with its Little accompaniment, shared between no fewer than 8 landholders its assets were formidable, 28 ploughs were backed by extensive meadows & woodland with 2 mills also recorded making for a very wealthy joint manor.

The Church

St Mary's church sits, appropriately enough within the almost separate community of Church End which sits to the north of the modern town and almost on the banks of the Chelmer. Despite this almost rural location St Mary is the epitome of a large town church and a;most totally a product of the 14th & 15th centuries. The chancel is the earliest fabric being from the first half of the 14th century and Decorated in style, it also shows lancet windows, a slight throwback to earlier fashions. Much of the remainder of the church comes from a rebuilding campaign of the 15th century, there are other remnants of the Decorated style as the southern doorway reveals for the southern aisle. The impressive western tower of the 15th century comes complete with a stair turret  and typical battlements and polygonal pinnacles. Battlements also crown the nave which was built after the tower as the tower's eastern buttresses project into it. There was relatively light work from the Victorians, a new east window of 1891 and a vestry of 1889 are indicated by Pevsner. The main road through Church End is the B1057 and Church Street projects northwards as a dead-end lane, there is ample room for on-street parking along Church Street. The street continues into the churchyard as a tarred pathway, the churchyard is tight to the church in places but there is sufficient room for the photographer to adequately gain images.