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

The Parish

The parish of Little Birch lies in southern Herefordshire roughly 6 miles south of the county city of Hereford. Little Birch sits about 1 mile east of the A49 road which links Hereford with Ross on Wye and is a rather dispersed settlement with properties scattered over a number of north to south running lanes and sitting below the isolated knoll of Aconbury Hill. Little Birch is a simple farming community with mixed methods present, agricultural incomes would have been expanded through exploitation of the local sandstone used for building stone. Much of the parish area, today, is set beneath forestry both to the north and east of the small village. Little Birch is drained eastwards by the aptly named Wriggle Brook which soon meets the similarly meandering River Wye at the apex of a meander at Hoarwithy, the Wye's circuitous course follows a general southward trend to reach the outer Bristol Channel through Chepstow. Little Birch is sited on the rising slopes of Aconbury Hill with its church at 140 metres whilst the village's higher reaches lie at 220 metres with the summit of the knoll standing at 276 metres above in rolling countryside. Little Birch parish was a typically small rural Herefordshire parish covering just 953 acres and supporting a population of around 350 parishioners. Little Birch is not mentioned in Domesday Book.

The Church

St Mary's church sits almost a half mile south of most properties in the scattered settlement on the western side of Ruff Lane which, beyond the church, becomes merely a bridleway. Sadly the church which sits here today is not the venue for these marriages but actually the 3rd iteration on this site and completed in 1869. The church uses the Geometric style with its nave and chancel augmented by a lean-to northern aisle, a porch to the northwest and a northern vestry all topped off with a tall bellcote at the western end. Internally the architect makes clever use of differing stone-types, the local sandstone and Bath cream limestone, to create a banded wall effect particularly in the chancel. Ruff Lane has a parking for a car or two outside the western end of the churchyard which is compact but relatively free of obstacles for the photographer.