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

The Parish

The parish of Kingsclere lies in the extreme north of Hampshire forming a stretch of the county's border with neighbouring Berkshire. Kingsclere sits roughly equally between the Berkshire town of Newbury, some 8 miles to the northwest, and Basingstoke, also 8 miles but to its southeast, it sits on the A339 road, which thankfully bypasses to its north, which links those two towns. Kingsclere at one time had market town status, a status now much diminished as time has passed by. The former market town has ancient origins being pre-fixed "Kings" indicates that it was the former seat of the Saxon kings in pre-Conquest times. The town grew up from its position as a spring-line settlement on the land rising to the foot of the great chalk escarpment of the Hampshire Downs which loom to the south and generated a string of small settlement along its base. Whilst Kingsclere may have lost its market status it remained still a centre for trade and specialist trades as well as being an important town for the malting, tanning and milling trades, as early as Domesday several mills operated along the fast-flowing stream through the town. The wider parish is split between arable and pastoral farming, at one time the Downs portion would have been the location for extensive sheep-runs with wool the main product whilst lower ground had a rich soils largely devoted to cereal, today much of the poorer soil of the Downs has been ploughed, fertilised and set to cereals too. Kingsclere was one of those rare substantial towns to which railways never came, a fact which impeded typical growth in Victorian times. The town remains, today, a small trading centre with some light industry to vary the employment market. One novel local business is supported by the close-cut turf of the nearby Downs, gallops for training race-horses nark the hills to the south of the town. Kingsclere is drained northwards by a small tributary of the River Enborne which is joined at the Berkshire border, the soon meets the Kennet before joining the Thames, flowing through the capital to the North Sea. Kingsclere is sited on a sloping site from 100 metres by its stream to 130 metres at the highest eastern developments, to the south the great escarpment culminates in the iconic Watership Down, home of fictional rabbits, and some 237 metres above the sea. Kingsclere parish was the most extensive in its county, covering almost 13,000 acres it is reminiscent of northern upland parishes in its extent, the acreage covered both Downs and Vale with almost 15% described as "waste", a term denoting common heathland; within that extensive acreage the parish would have supported a population of close to 3.250 parishioners. Even by Domesday times Kingsclere was an important settlement containing ebough population to place itself amongst the largest 20% recorded in that book, shared by King William with 4 others, including a Saxon survivor Leofwin, its assets were many, 26 ploughs were supported by meadows & woodland and no fewer than 5 mills making the town a very wealthy place at that time.

The Church

St Mary's church sits at the junction of the former A339, Newbury Road, with Swan Street. As befits a substantial settlement the church is rather large being 130 feet in length. There is extensive documentation recorded the re-dedication of this church following a rebuild completed in 1130. Henry I, then king, granted an advowson to the Augustinian Canons of St Mary, Rouen, France to which this church was subservient at the time. This early 12th century church is still well represented in today's building the nave, a lengthy example, the central crossing tower and the transepts that make up the basic cruciform structure of the church all date from this Norman Romanesque period, a fascinating example of a 12th century church and a rare survivor that intact. To that 12th century core the eastern end of, mainly, the chancel one finds later work which Pevsner tentatively assigns a date of c1270; this dating places that piece into the Early English Gothic period. The best preserved piece from this period is that of the southern chapel of c1260 although it was remodelled in Tudor times with their style windows. Like most churches it was in Victorian times that the next phase of significant change occurred, here what Pevsner described as a "ferocious restoration" took place in the late 1840s, it intent apparently was to return the church to Norman splendour but then marred those efforts by facing the exterior in flint rather than the original Bembridge (Isle of Wight) freestone. Pevsner also derides the stone cap to the tower's stair-turret which he calls "silly". Parking, if fortunate, can be found in the small parking bays of Swan Street otherwise a town car park should be sought and the church approached on foot. Only a modest foot-high wall surrounds the churchyard which is slightly raised above paving height, for the photographer there are quite a few trees around the site requiring careful selection of aspect to gain the best views of the church.