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

The Parish

The parish of |Hursley lies in southern Hampshire about 5 miles southwest of the city of Winchester. Hursley is a large village which sits on the A3090 road connecting Winchester with Romsey. Most properties are built along the main road with short extensions onto east and westward running lanes. At the time of this transcript Hursley would have been a farming village, a mixed regime possible on the poor soils of the district, today Hursley sits just north of the ever expanding conurbation that is Greater Southampton, an almost continuous urban area extends north from the port to within a couple of miles of Hursley. There is a green split between Southampton & Chandler's Ford but this is largely spolied by the intersection of the M3 & M27 motorways. The Modern M3 motorway runs through the easternmost portion of Hursley parish en route from London to Southampton. All of this development has seen Hursley expand as a commuter settlement in recent times. Hursley is drained southwards by the Monks Brook which makes its way past Southampton's Airport to join the Itchen and the English Channel through Southampton Water. Hursley is sited at around 50 metres above the sea at the boundary of the coastal plains and the rising chalk downlands, land rises steadily northwestwards to reach 174 metres on Beacon Hill a few miles away.Hursley parish was extensive, one of the largest in the county, it covered an impressive area of close to 7,000 acres making it more typical of an upland northern parish than one in southern England; that extensive parish would have supported a population of close to 1,500 parishioners. Hursley is not specifically mentioned in Domesday Book.

The Church

All Saints church sits on the western side of the A3090, here named Main Street, at the centre of the village and opposite the village's inn. Whilst there are some medieval features remaining, the church is largely the product of a rebuild in the 1840s. There remains the Perpendicular style western tower dated to the 14th century but all else is from that later era. Whilst most Victorian replacement churches attract little comment from Pevsner this one, being the work of J P Harrison, the leading light of the Oxford Movement and a follower of Pugin, attracts much comment for its features typical of that renaissance in style. Much use of the Decorated fashion is made, so much so that the windows of Perpendicular portions of the building were modified backwards to that earlier fashion. The tower once bore a spire built in this rebuild but this was removed in the 1960s and replaced by a tiled cap. The A3090 is busy and parking is difficult unless one seeks permission from the inn to use their extensive area, at the southern end of the site is a curious double lychgate granting entry through the typical flint & brick wall of the churchyard. Other than a few scattered small trees there are few obstacles within to photography.