England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Wacton Parish Church

The Parish

The parish of Wacton lies in northeastern Herefordshire not too far from its border with neighbouring Worcestershire. Wacton is a tiny place, little more than a hamlet which is located about 4 miles northwest of the market town of Bromyard and which sits a mile north of the A44 road which connects Bromyard with Leominster. Wacton has no real defined village just a handful of farms and cottages at the end of a dead-end lane grouped around the ruin of the former church. A modest farming parish with almost equal measure arable and pastoral with a token acreage of the local specialties of hop growing. Modern developments came and went from the parish, a railway line linking Bromyard with Leominster being closed and largely dismantled today. Wacton is drained by the infant River Frome which heads south through Bromyard turning southwest to meet the Lugg and finally the Wye before a long journey to the outer Bristol Channel arriving through the port of Chepstow. Wacton is sited at the height of 190 metres above the sea in strongly undulating countryside where land continues to rise southwestwards to a local height of 240 metres at Grendon Bishop. Herefordshire is a county with many small parishes and Wacton was fairly typical, covering just over 950 acres it would have supported a small population of around 100 parishioners. In Domesday times Wacton was not specifically mentioned but the manor of Billesley was recorded as shared between Roger de Lacy and Urso de Abetot, collectively their assets totalled 7 ploughs and a mill.

The Church

Wacton's parish church is no more having been demolished in 1881, only a single archival photograph serves to record its former appearance. At Pevsner's visit a small amount of the walling remained to be recorded. The church was a long rectangle of nave and chancel in one and apparently had Norman Romanesque features indicative of a 12th century origin. The church sat on the southern side of the dead-end lane just before it degrades into a footpath heading across the former railway line.