England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Bighton All Saints

The Parish

The parish of Bighton lies almost centrally within Hampshire being roughly 9 miles northeast of the city of Winchester. Bighton sits almost 3 miles north of the A31 road which links Winchester with London. Bighton is a small crossroads village with most properties clustered around the junction formed by lanes running to the cardinal points, to the northwest of this main centre lies the church, the manor house and rectory sitting in a neat group. To the south and just under a mile lies the subdisiary settlement of Gundleton which almost matches its mother village in size. The village lies on chalk with a porous substrate heavily filled with flint, a resource for local building that was extensively exploited. Farming in the area has changed much over the centuries from being dominated by sheep on extensive chalk downs to much more arable with the help of modern machinery & fertilisers. Modern developments just crept into the south of the parish where the railway line from New Alresford to Alton runs, today it is an exemplar heritage line, The Watercress Line in steam. Bighton sits within a shallow dry valley with water emerging at New Alresford to join the Itchen, the Itchen passes Winchester and reaches the English Channel through the port of Southampton. Bighton is sited at around 90 metres above the sea, land rises not in dramatic swelling Downs as the chalk here lies in largely horizontal bedding but local high points attain 191 metres to the northeast. Bighton parish covered a little over 2,000 acres and supported a population of around 300 parishioners. In Domesday times Bighton was held by Winchester Abbey and offered just 7 ploughs backed by typical meadows & woodland as a fairly typical modest rural settlement, just like today.

The Church

As already mentioned All Saints church sits to the northwest of the main village crossroads together with the manor house & rectory. This is one of the county's ancient churches with parts of the fabric dating back to Saxon times, Pevsner does not states whether this is pre-Conquest but almost certainly the church was begun in the 11th century. The chancel shows either late-Saxon or early-Norman lancet styled windows from these times. Of more certain dates are the Norman 12th century 2-bay arcades showing round piers with square abaci typical of that era. Historic England suggest this was actually a late 12th century rebuilding of an earlier nave presumably of similar date to the early lancets. The short western tower complete with its weatherboarding together with the southern porch are later and probably from the 13th century Early English Gothic era. By Georgian times the church had fallen into a semi-ruinous stated resulting in intensive restoration in 1836 with the work being done in a sympathetic "Late Georgian Gothic" style. Besides the restoration back to good order the work also added a vestry to the northwest. The church is approached by the drive leading to the manor house which ends at the gates to that property with the church access immediately to its right, parking is best sought in the main village as that drive is narrow. Sadly for the photographer the church is embedded in trees with the southern aspects in particular inaccessible, views from the other angles are available.