England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Wigginton St Bartholomew

The Parish

The parish of Wigginton lies in the extreme west of Hertfordshire forming a stretch of the county's border with neighbouring Buckinghamshire. Wigginton is located about 1 1/2 miles southeast of the town of Tring and stands a half mile south of the A41 road which links Aylesbury with London. Wigginton is a crossroads village sat upon a hilltop, the northern edge of the Chiltern Range above the gap within that range, the Tring Gap, which has been exploited for most of the transport infrastructure. Most of the properties in the village lie along the west to east running lane that forms its spine, various side lanes also carry some properties. Whilst the Tring Gap provides a route for modern transportation there is plenty of evidence for earlier forms of the same within the parish, the Ridgway National Trails follows the ancient prehistoric route along the escarpment of the Chilterns and the Saxon boundary, the Grim's Ditch, passes to the village's south. At the time of this transcript Wigginton would have been a farming parish with a mixture of arable and pastoral methods, principally sheep. Much of the parish is wooded even today and that would have been exploited for woodland products. Modern developments have all passes through the parish and the Tring Gap, first to arrive was the Grand Union Canal, shortly after the railway line from London to Aylesbury and nowadays the A41 has been upgraded to fast dual-carriageway highway, all take similar parallel routes. Wigginton sits on porous chalk with no surface drainage, from the base of the Chilterns' springs rise to form small brooks which coalesce into the headwaters of the River Thame which drains westwards and then southwestwards to meet the Thames at Dorchester in Oxfordshire, the Thames returns water back eastwards passing through the capital to the North Sea. Wigginton is sited at around 210 metres above the sea, some 80 metres higher than its larger neighbour, Tring, westwards along the Ridgway land rises to 260 metres on nearby Coombe Hill. Covering just under 1,700 acres Wigginton was smaller than many in this area, it would have supported a population of close to 650 parishioners, the loss of its early registers is a blow to genealogists as around 200 marriages have been irretrievably lost. In Domesday times Wigginton was a holding of Count Robert of Mortain offering 4 ploughs, meadows and woodland and a mill.

The Church

St Bartholomew's church sits just into Hemp Lane, the eastward running lane that heads for nearby Albury.  At its core St Bartholomew is a 13th century Early English Gothic church but such has been the changes wrought by the Victorian restorers that it appears more modern as a consequence. Both nave and chancel are 13th century, they come with an additional chamber added in the 15th century Perpendicular style. The major restoration, the first of two, came during a campaign from 1857 to 1861, it added the northern aisle, the southern porch and replaced the east window and the bell-turret. Further work followed in 1881 which re-seated the church, enlarged the chancel arch and extended the northern aisles westwards. Even in the 20th century there was further change with the addition of a meeting room in 1973. Whilst Hemp Lane is rather narrow there is room for considerate on-street parking in a few spots. Entrance is through a lychgate sitting just east of the war memorial, the lychgate is shaded by thick tree cover but once beyond the churchyard is mostly clear apart from a single tree at the southeastern corner of the chancel limiting views from the favoured southeastern aspect.