England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Whaddon St Margaret

The Parish

The parish of Whaddon lies in western central Gloucestershire roughly 3 miles south of city of Gloucester. Whaddon is a small place, little more than hamlet, which sits on and immediately west of the A4173 road which connects Gloucester with Stroud. For motorists passing along the A4173 it is a real blink and miss it sort of place yet as Gloucester expands it will probably become a mere suburb in the not so distant future as a half mile only separates it from already suburban Tuffley.  At the time of this transcript, and for now, it is a pastoral farming hamlet with the rich alluvial soils of the Severn plain providing rich grazing land. Modern developments have come to the parish, the modern M5 motorway skirts immediately to the south whilst the Gloucester to Bristol railway line grazes the parish to its west. A small, man influenced, stream drains the parish northwestwards into the nearby Severn and thence to the Bristol Channel. Whaddon is sited at around 40 metres above the sea but is dominated by both Robin's Wood Hill at 98 metres and the nearby Cotswold ranges rising as a prominent escarpment eastwards and reaching 283 metres on nearby Painswick Beacon, the former being a detached outlier of the latter. Whaddon was one of the county's smaller parishes being just under 700 acres and supporting around 150 parishioners. Whaddon, in Domesday times, was an equally small place, held by one Durand of Gloucester, it could offer merely 10 ploughs.

The Church

St Margaret's church sits at the western end of Church Lane, the dead-end lane which leads westwards from the A4173. Representing two distinct ages within its fabric enough remains of the medieval to confidently date the building despite the usual Victorian restorations. Lancet style windows in both nave and chancel are from the 13th century Early English Gothic era and distinctly diagnostic of these sections being from that period, a fine moulded inner doorway and the chancel arch also confirm that dating for the main body. The western tower showing the style of the Perpendicular era is either an addition of the 15th century or a rebuild of an earlier version, a good example of 3 stages which interestingly changes diagonal buttresses into clasping for the much decorated top stage complete with battlements and gargoyles. Pevsner documents two Victorian restorations, that of the nave being in the mid-1850s whilst the chancel was restored in 1880. Church Lane is narrow but careful parking and limited traffic do allow a visit, wooden gates grant entry to the churchyard, which is well screened from the lane, apart from a single, avoidable, large evergreen, to the south of that western tower, all other angles are available for the photographer.