England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Alveston St Helen

The Parish

The parish of Alveston lies in southern Gloucestershire roughly 11 miles north of the city of Bristol. Alveston sits on the busy A38 road which connects Bristol with Gloucester and onward to Birmingham. Given its proximity to the metropolis of Bristol it is no surprise that Alveston is a much grown village, most properties lies in the fork formed by the A38 and the B4461 which runs from the former down to the Severn Estuary at Aust. At the time of this transcript Alveston was a mid-sized pastoral farming village sitting upon a high ridge of limestone (formed from ancient fossil coral reefs) giving tremendous views westwards towards the Severn. This attractive location has led to much modern development such that Alveston, today, is almost a mile in extent from east to west. Modern developments have come to the parish, the modern M5 motorway cuts a swathe through the parish just over a mile east of the village. Sitting on porous limestone there is little surface drainage around the village, a few streams dribble out from the base of the ridge and head westwards to reach the nearby outer Severn Estuary. Alveston is sited at around 90 metres above the sea, the ridge extending from northeast to southwest gradually declines towards Bristol with Alveston being almost its highest point. Alveston parish was fairly typically sized for this area, covering close to 2,600 acres it would have supported a population of around 800 parishioners, many more today as recent estimates show over 2,500. In Domesday times Alveston was an equally mid to large sized manor, retained by King William, himself, its assets totalled 25 ploughs and its population was sufficient to make it amongst the largest 20% of settlements recorded in that book.

The Church

St Helen's church sat, at one time, away from the village alongside the A38, today the village has grown to meet it. Sadly this is not some medieval masterpiece but a late-Victorian replacement and, indeed, not the venue for these marriages.Early gazetteers describe the former church as in the later English style, presumably Perpendicular, with a square embattled tower but all trace of that has been removed and a new church built in the mid-1880s. Whilst the rock-faced stone is an attractive fabric, the building clearly had little to interest Pevsner as his account is just 4 lines of descriptive text. A simple church of nave & chancel augmented by a three-stage western tower (complete with a stair-turret) and a southern porch. The church sits alongside the busy A38 but refuge for parking can be found to its east accessed via Greenhill Road where parking sits alongside the eastern boundary of the churchyard. The churchyard is surrounded by a local, limestone, wall with an arched lychgate for entry. Curiously the church sits rather tight to the southern boundary making the better views from across the main road.