England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Liston Parish Church

The Parish

The parish of Liston lies in the extreme north of Essex forming a stretch of the border with neighbouring Suffolk. Liston is located roughly 3 miles north of the Suffolk market town of Sudbury and sits, across the river Stour, roughly a mile and half west of the A134 which connects Sudbury with Bury St Edmunds. Liston is a tiny place, no village as such, just a handful of cottages and farms sitting around a crossroads with the church. The hamlet sits just west of the River Stour which here marks the border between the two counties with the larger settlement of Long Melford just a short distance the eastern side. Like most Essex parishes Liston was dominated by arable farming and, today, little has changed with broad fields of cereal, beet and oil-seed covering the landscape. The Stour drains the parish southwards before turning east to reach the North Sea through the Stour's estuary at Harwich. Liston is sited at around 40 metres above the sea, some 10 metres above the Stour, whilst further west land rises gently to local heights of around 70 metres. Liston parish was small even by Essex standards, covering only a fraction above 600 acres it would only have supported a population of just under 100 parishioners. In Domesday times Liston was an equally small place, shared between Hugh de Gournay and Ilbod de Hesdin its assets totalled just 7 ploughs, some small meadows but there was a mill.

The Church

Liston's parish church has no known dedication, it sits in the northeastern quadrant of the crossroads which forms the notional centre of Liston. It is not uncommon for such small places to have churches with ancient origins and this is no exception. Both nave & chancel exhibit masonry from the Norman Romanesque period of the 12th century, the plain and blocked northern doorway also being from this early period. The church received its first modifications in the 13th century when the chancel was widened. In the 16th century the present tower, a mixture of brick and a blue stone, was constructed. The Victorian period saw the usual restoration, in this case of 1867 when the stair turret, southern porch & chapel and a vestry were all added, the chancel saw further changes too. The changes externally were matched inside the church by a wooden chancel screen, a stone reredos and wall paintings. The lanes are quiet but narrow around the crossroads and parking should be sought with care & consideration. A typical East Anglian flint & brick wall surrounds the churchyard with a metal gate concealed to the north. Sadly the churchyard is much constrained to the southern aspects with confers and mature deciduous trees substantially removing most angles from the photographer's palette and making for a challenging subject from any angle other than the west.