England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Titley St Peter

The Parish

The parish of Titley lies in northwestern Herefordshire not too far from its border with neighbouring Radnorshire, indeed it forms part of the border with the Radnorshire parish of Presteigne which has a portion within Herefordshire, and hence Wales. Titley is located about 3 miles northeast of the market town of Kington and sits on the B4355 road which connects Kington with the Radnorshire town of Presteigne. Titley is a small farming village which sits on the northern edge of the floodplain of the River Arrow, the farming hereabouts would have been dominated by pastures with beef cattle the dominant animal. Whilst modern developments, in the form of railway branch-lines came to the are all are now closed, part of the Kington to Leominster line has been reopened as a private and rather short stretch of heritage line. The Arrow drains the parish eastwards, joins the Lugg to the south of Leominster and the Wye to the east of Hereford before making its way to the Bristol Channel through the port of Chepstow. Titley is sited at around 170 metres above the sea in rolling countryside, precursor to the Cambrian Hills of nearby Wales, local heights rise to almost 350 metres within a mile or so. Parishes in western Herefordshire are often fairly extensive but by those standards Titley parish was fairly small, covering just under 1,800 acres it would have supported a population of close to 400 parishioners. In Domesday times Titley was in frontier territory for the Normans it was held by one Osbern but was largely described as "waste" albeit with potential for up to 42 ploughs. 

The Church

St Peter's church sits on the western side of B4355 towards the northern end of the village. The church is not some medieval masterpiece but a Georgian/Victorian replacement, the main body dating from the 1860s whilst the western tower is dateable to 1834. The western tower shows motifs of the Early English Gothic period including the lancet windows characteristic of that period. The remainder is styled to next era of architecture, the Decorated style prevalent around the start of the 14th century. A large church despite the small congregation, its basic structure of nave, chancel & western tower is augmented by an aisle, arcade and vestry to the north and a southern porch. The B4355 is fairly narrow through the village but there is an adequate single parking spot outside the wooden gates which grant entry at the southern end of the site. Once within the churchyard there are few, if any, obstructions to photography.