England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Stretford St Cosmas & St Damian

The Parish

The parish of Stretford lies towards the northwest of central Herefordshire about 4 miles southwest of the market town of Leominster. Stretford lies on the A4110 road which connects Hereford with Leintwardine and is a tiny place with not even a hamlet to function as a centre. A scatter of farms and cottages spread over its equally small acreage on the northern banks of the Stretford Brook. A pastoral farming community exploiting the watermeadows of that stream. The parish is drained northwestward by the Brook, joining the Arrow near Leominster swiftly followed by the Lugg, the Lugg joins the Wye to the east of Hereford and makes its way to the Bristol Channel by the port of Chepstow. Stretford is sited at around 80 metres above the sea in gentle valley terrain where local heights rise to little more than 100 metres within a mile or two. Stretford parish was tiny, covering only a little over 400 acres it would not even have supported 50 parishioners. In Domesday times the parish was equally small meriting just a single plough plus a share in a second it was a lesser holding for Alfred of Marlborough.

The Church

St Cosmas & St Damian's church (early sources name it St Peter) lies immediately east of the A4110 and surrounded by farm buildings. The church is now in the hands of Churches Conservation Trust as it is almost redundant for worship. Despite its small size the church is as complex as it comes being comprised of two naves and two chancels joined to each other under a single roof. The older northern pair is Norman Romanesque whilst the southern pair is Early English Gothic the two being built in 12th and 13th centuries respectively. The pair were extended eastwards in the early 13th century with the Decorated style present at that eastern end. The single-span roof was a 16th century addition, a piece of work that Pevsner describes as giving the "little building remarkable grandeur". A pair of restorations in 1875 & 1922 complete the work upon an interesting little church. A narrow lane, signed to the church, leads southeastwards from the A4110 to a complex of farm buildings surrounding the little church, parking is relatively straightforward and the churchyard has no obstructions to photography.