England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Minchinhampton Holy Trinity

The Parish

The parish of Minchinhampton lies in central southern Gloucestershire not too far from its border with neighbouring Wiltshire. Minchinhampton is located about 3 miles southeast of the industrial town of Stroud and sits on the Cotswold Hills. Minchinhampton is a very large village and a market town albeit small for that status. Minchinhampton sits, in lanes, about a mile south of the A419 road which connects Stroud with Cirencester. The village sits on a narrow ridge of limestone between the deeply incised valleys of the Golden Valley & Nailsworth Valley. Minchinhampton was granted a market in the reign of Henry III and grew slowly supporting the local farming community. Industry grew Minchinhampton to its present size, notably the manufacture of woollen cloth from the fleeces of the ubiquitous Cotswold Sheep. Despite this industrial growth Minchinhampton was always eclipsed by nearby Stroud and remains with the character of a large well serviced village. The parish has little surface drainage, that which there is heads for the nearby River Frome to reach the Severn and thence the Bristol Channel. Minchinhampton is sited at 190 metres above the sea at the western end of a spur of the Cotswold but some 140 metres above the Frome just over a mile away. Minchinhampton parish was one of the larger in the area, it covered almost 4,900 acres and supported a population of just over 5,000 parishioners. In Domesday times (and up to the Dissolution of Henry VIII) MInchinhampton was held by the Abbey of Caen, it could offer 29 ploughs, small meadows & woodland plus an impressive 8 mills the source of the town's industrial strength in later years.

The Church

Holy Trinity church sits at the heart of Minchinhampton just to the north of the town's main junction but set back into a side road (Bell Lane). The church's origins go back as far as the Conquest and probably before that. The present building probably has material from the 11th century. More certain is Pevsner's dating of the abbess' enlargement in the 12th century. Built in the cruciform style of the Norman period with transepts and a central crossing tower it is a large church as merited by its volume of parishioners. Much of the present building shows the Decorated style of the 14th century and Pevsner is quick to date both transepts and the tower (albeit reduced in height and given its present crown) to that period. The nave, both aisles and chancel were rebuilt in 1842 albeit with much reuse of earlier material. There was a second restoration in the 1860s to give the present building. The church can be accessed through its chest-height local Cotswold stone from Bell Lane where there is parking and a nice lychgate. Most of the site is relatively open for photography and only really restricted by trees close to the eastern end.