England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Shipton Moyne St John the Baptist

The Parish

The parish of Shipton Moyne lies in the extreme south of Gloucestershire forming an extensive stretch of the border with neighbouring Wiltshire, the eastern edge of the parish following the ancient line of the Roman Fosse Way which still forms an important boundary centuries after it was first constructed. Shipton Moyne is located a little over 2 miles south of the small market town of Tetbury and sits almost the same distance southeast of the A433 road which links Tetbury through towards the A46 near Chipping Sodbury. Shipton Moyne is a linear village with properties running either side of a north to south running lane for a quarter mile, the wider parish has scattered farms and cottages and the large estate of Estcourt Park, the 18th/19th century mansion of which was demolished in 1964 whereas the surrounding parkland still survives. The parish sits within limestone country and soils are thin and generally more suited to the raising of sheep until modern fertilisers transformed the present landscape into more cereal growing from sheep grazing. Shipton Moyne is drained southeastwards by a small tributary of the Tetbury branch of the River Avon, the two branches meet at Malmesbury, continuing southward to near Melksham before heading through Bath & Bristol to the Bristol Channel arriving through the iconic gorge. Shipton Moyne is sited at around 100 metres above the sea and whilst terrain is fairly gentle local high spots west of the village rise to 144 metres to the southwest of Tetbury. At just under 2,300 acres Shipton Moyne parish was larger than the norm for a southern rural parish, within that acreage it would have supported a population of close to 350 parishioners. In Domesday times Shipton Moyne was a holding of one Matthew de Mortagne and a rather profitable one at that, its assets of 14 ploughs being supported by 2 mills.

The Church

St John's church sits to the east of the village's main lane, The Street, accessed along the short dead-end lane of Church Road. Sadly little remains of the medieval church that once stood here, the participants in these marriages would not recognise today's parish church as it was almost complete rebuilt in the mid 1860s. That rebuilding left only a small part of the northern aisle and the porch from medieval times albeit it kept the 18th century Estcourt Chapel. The rebuilding also completely changed the overall layout of the church, the former building having a central tower whereas the newly rebuilt version sits at the southwestern corner. Both northern aisle remains and the porch carry dating at the start of the 15th century, they are Perpendicular in style; the newer parts, however, were constructed mostly in the earlier Decorated style or, in the case of the tower, the even earlier Early English Gothic style of the late 13th century. Church Road is narrow but has a bulbous section outside the gates to allow a car or two not only to park but also to turn around. The entrance is rather shaded by trees, a theme continued into the churchyard where the photographer will require ingenuity to find sufficient angles for satisfactory images.