England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Ashmansworth St James

The Parish

The parish of Ashmansworth lies in the far northwest of Hampshire close to where the county meets with both Wiltshire & Berkshire. Ashmansworth is located roughly 7 miles southwest of the large Berkshire town of Newbury and sits about a mile west of the A343 road which connects Newbury with Andover. Ashmansworth is a small and relatively compact village largely built around a crossroads of narrow lane and sitting high on the northern edges of the South Downs close to its rather precipitous northern escarpment. Soils here were thin and clay ridge and bedeviled with flint making difficult arable working, consequently until very recently the majority of land was either pasture or set to woodland. Today with modern machinery much has turned arable but there are still areas of copse which once would have been managed for woodland products. The underlying rock being porous chalk most water drains unseen down the dry valleys characteristic of the area until emerging as part of the River Swift, a tributary of the Test which is soon joined and which makes its way to the English Channel emerging through the port of Southampton. Ashmansworth is sited at the relatively high height, for southern Britain, of 230 metres above the sea with land rising to almost 300 metres on the edges of the great escarpment and northwest of the village. Asshmansworth parish was large but not unusually so, covering close to 1,800 acres it would have supported a population of around 200 parishioners. Ashmansworth is not specifically mentioned in Domesday Book.

The Church

St James' church (its dedication having been changed from St Nicholas) sits remote from its village almost a mile to the southwest and is accompanied by a farm. Remote country churches are often amongst the oldest in their area and this is certainly the case with St James. Much of the fabric dates back to the Norman Romanesque period and is probably immediately after the Conquest despite the lack of a reference in Domesday Book. Either late 11th or 12th century with 13th century Early English Gothic lancets inserted as part of an early restoration. The 13th century connection is enhanced by a series of wall paintings dating to that century revealed by 1900 restorers. There have, of course, been changes mostly minor but the eastern wall of the chancel, now of brick, was replaced in 1745 soon after the brick southern porch which was added some 50 years earlier. The Victorian restoration of 1900 was late by their standards and also rather sensitive too allowing us to appreciate the ancient splendour of this undisturbed relic of the early times. Church Lane leads northwestwards from the main southwesterly lane arriving at a small parking area outside the shaded churchyard. The churchyard is rather compact with trees very close making for something of a challenge to find adequate angles for the photographer.