England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Middleton All Saints

The Parish

The parish of Middleton lies in the extreme north of Essex forming part of the border, here marked by the River Stour, with neighbouring Suffolk. Middleton is a small and fairly compact village which lies just a mile south of the Suffolk market town of Sudbury. Middleton sits a mile east of the A131 road which connects Sudbury with Braintree. Middleton, as an edge of flood-plain settlement, would have had a more varied agricultural economy that normal for the area. The rich water-meadows alongside the Stour giving good grazing whilst on higher ground the normal arable farming would have predominated. The Stour drains the parish south and then east, always forming the county border, and reaching the North Sea through its estuary and the port of Harwich. Middleton is sited at 50 metres above the sea in fairly gentle terrain, local heights rise southwards to around 80 metres within a mile or so. Middleton parish was a small parish, one of many such along this part of the Stour valley, covering just under 900 acres it would have supported a population of just over 100 parishioners. In Domesday times Middleton was equally small yet shared 3 ways, collectively it could muster 5 ploughs together with some meadows & woodland.

The Church

All Saints' church is tucked away and best found using the village footpath network, a path running in from the western end of the village. This church is of ancient origin and shows many remarkable features of the 12th century Norman Romanesque style. Pevsner is particularly impressed with the southern doorway which shows colonettes with scalloped capitals, inside the polygonal shafts are decorated with a chain of triangles, an impressive relic of early times. The nave of the church is somewhat later being 14th century and Decorated in style. The nave is topped off with nice timbered turret and flagpole. In Tudor times the porch was added whilst the usual Victorian restoration, in the 1850s, not only refreshed the main fabric but also added the northern vestry. Parking can be found on The Street whilst a short walk skirts the western edge of the village, firstly north and then east through trees to the churchyard, here there are no obstacles to photography once within,