England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Great Catworth St Leonard

The Parish

The parish of Great Catworth (usually rendered simply as Catworth today) lies in the extreme west of Huntingdonshire; borders are complicated hereabouts but a peninsula of neighbouring Bedfordshire intrudes and Great Catworth therefore forms part of the county border, it is also not too far from Northamptonshire. Great Catworth is located about 8 miles west of the county town of Huntingdon and roughly 6 miles southeast of the Northamptonshire market town of Thrapston. Great Catworth sits on the B660 road about a mile south of the busy A14 road which runs across the southern Midlands from the east coast ports to the M6 motorway. At the time of this transcript Great Catworth would have been a farming community with pastoral farming dominant in a mixed economy, today arable has increased in extent but the regime is still mixed. Great Catworth is drained northwards by a small headwater of the Ellington Brook which is soon joined, the latter flows eastwards to reach the Great Ouse to the west of Huntingdon and thence to the North Sea through The Wash. Great Catworth is sited at around 60 metres above the sea in gently undulating countryside, local heights rise to less than 20 metres higher with a couple of miles. Great Catworth parish was fairly typically sized for this area, it covered close to 2,000 acres and would have supported a population of just over 600 parishioners. In Domesday times Great Catworth was a tiny place, held by William of Warenne it could offer a single plough with a small acreage of woodland and even smaller meadow

The Church

St Leonard's church sits at the northeastern end of the village, appropriately enough in the area known as Church End. The church shows evidence of an origin in the 13th century. Early English Gothic style shows in the southern doorway and internally in the piscina. The church, however, was substantially rebuilt in the 14th century and in a mixture of Decorated & Perpendicular styles showing a build period covering that fashion change. The basal portion of the western tower is the best example of Decorated work whilst Pevsner cites the four bay arcades as fine examples of the Perpendicular. Later still comes the clerestory, probably added to improve the lighting of the church interior. The church sits on Church Road, a small parking area at the southern end allowing access through wooden gates into a churchyard well populated by trees. To north and southeast views are somewhat restricted making for a limited set of angles to capture the building.