England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Itchen Stoke St Mary

The Parish

The parish of Itchen Stoke lies almost centrally within Hampshire and roughly 7 miles east of the ancient city of Winchester. Itchen Stoke sits on the B3047 road which follows the valley of the River Itchen, from which the village takes its prefix, between Winchester and New Alresford. The parish extended northeastwards to also include the hamlet of Abbotstone. Itchen Stoke is a small and rather linear village with most properties either lining the B3047 or scattered as detached farms and cottages across the wider parish. The soils around Itchen Stoke were rather conducive to arable cropping and early gazetteers estimate as much as almost 60% of the acreage would have been largely set to cereals, the regime being varied by exploiting the water-meadows alongside the Itchen which was also a source for the local crop of water-cress. The Itchen drains the parish westwards, turning south at Winchester it meets the English Channel through the port of Southampton. Itchen Stoke is sited at around 60 metres above the sea in its valley setting, outwith the valley land rises in rolling downland to around 120 metres in places. Itchen Stoke parish was fairly typically sized for its area, covering just over 2,900 acres it was a little large for a southern lowland agricultural parish, within that acreage it would have supported a population of close to 300 parishioners. In Domesday times Itchen Stoke was held by Romsey Abbey, its assets amounted to 10 ploughs, a small meadow, its own mill and a share in a further one, a fairly typical small rural community of those times.

The Church

St Mary's church has been deconsecrated and is nowadays maintained by charitable trusts, occasional services are still held. St Mary sits on the northern side of the B3047 at the junction with the lane leading to Abbotstone. The church is a Victorian replacement, built in the mid 1860s as a replacement for a medieval church which is described by gazetteers as being "in the early English style", it is consequently not the venue for these marriages. Normally Pevsner is quite scathing in recording such churches but that at Itchen Stoke is rightly praised as being "quite remarkable for its date". The combined nave and chancel has a most ornate apse gracing the eastern end, all topped by a soaring spiky bellcote. The use of lancet styled windows along thr 4-bay sides is perhaps reflective of the style of its predecessor. A feature of the church is the impressively high nave, some 40 feet in height, which has a beautifully coloured open timber roof. The churchyard sits on a relatively busy road but quieter parking can be found off the Abbotstone lane. A small wooden gate at the apex of the junction serves to gain entry, sadly trees sit alongside the southern face fairly closely removing that favoured aspect from the photographer's portfolio but enough angles remain to record what is, after all, a quite remarkable building.