England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Bovingdon St Lawrence

The Parish

The parish of Bovingdon lies in the far west of Hertfordshire forming a stretch of the border with neighbouring Buckinghamshire, Bovingdon lies roughly 4 miles southwest of the large town of Hemel Hempstead and was once merely a chapelry of that place. Bovingdon sits on and largely south of the B4505 road which connects Hemel Hempstead with Chesham in Buckinghamshire. This area is part of the Chiltern Hills, indeed the local Chiltern Way trail passes through Bovingdon. Whilst even at the time of this transcript Bovingdon was already a large village, modern developments have added to the village until it covers a slanting oblong shape of over a mile from southwest to northeast. The construction of The Mount, a prison for over 1,000 inmates built on an old World war 2 airfield, has added to that development with accommodation for support staff. At the time of this transcript Bovingdon would have largely been a pastoral farming community with sheep grazing the shallow soils of the Chilterns the main economy, the women of the village would also have supplemented the family's income by the local trade of straw platting. Today Bovingdon has a large commuter class supplying labour into Hemel Hempstead and the wider area. Bovingdon sits on porous chalk so there is very little surface drainage, water makes its way beneath the ground northwards to the River Gade, the latter heads south joining in turn the Colne and then the Thames before making its way into the North Sea through the capital. Bovingdon is sited at around 160 metres on top of a local hill, heights rarely reach much higher for some considerable distance. Chilterns parishes are mostly quite large by southern standards and Bovingdon was no exception, covering just over 3,500 acres it would have supported a population of close to 1,100 parishioners. Bovingdon is not specifically mentioned in Domesday Book.

The Church

St Lawrence's church sits at the northeastern end of the village within a large triangular tract of land between Church Lane and Church Street. Early gazetteers refer to the church as a "very ancient edifice bearing marks of Anglo-Saxon origin", sadly much of that history was lost in an extensive rebu0ild of the 1840s to create a church that these folk recorded would not have recognised. Merely the lower part of the tower and some old reused stonework remains of that "ancient edifice". The rebuild is clearly of little architectural interest for Pevsner whose account covers a mere 6 lines of text and is purely descriptive. Church Lane has the main entrance, formed by a lychgate, wirh parking for a few vehicles to its east. The churchyard, which is quite extensive, is open and uncluttered with no obstacles for the photographer.