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

The Parish

The parish of Fenstanton (usually rendered as Fen Stanton in early documents) lies in the extreme east of Huntingdonshire forming an extensive stretch of the border with neighbouring Cambridgeshire. Fenstanton is a large village lying about 3 miles south of the market town of St Ives and sitting immediately north of the busy A14 road which links Cambridge with Huntingdon and onwards to the Midlands. Fenstanton sits on the southern edge of the River Great Ouse's floodplain, a location which enabled a more varied farming regime than is typical of this area of the country, early gazetteers relate that almost one third of the parish acreage was set to pasture exploiting the rich alluvial soils of the river edges whilst more dry ground supported typical arable farming. Modern developments came to the north of the parish, the railway line connecting Cambridge and Huntingdon nowadays functions as an innovative tramway providing speedy access to the university city, a boost to commuters in the area, whilst to the south the recently re-routed A14 is almost of motorway standard and carries heavy traffic from the east coast ports onto the motorway network. A small brook drains the parish, West Brook, into the nearby Great Ouse which winds across The Fens to reach the North Sea arriving through the port of King's Lynn. Fenstanton is sited at just 5 metres above the sea in largely flat terrain where land gently rises to a local height of 37 metres a couple of miles to the southeast. Parishes in the area of The Fens are traditionally quite extensive by southern parish standards and Fenstanton was one of these, covering a little over 2,400 acres it would have supported a population of around 1,000 parishioners. In Domesday times Fenstanton was a more modest place, held by one Gilbert of Ghent it could offer some 13 ploughs together with a small meadow.

The Church

St Peter & St Paul's church sits on the northern edge of the large village it supports at the northern end of Church Street. Three stages of architecture can be seen within the church albeit the traces of the earliest, Early English Gothic, are limited to the basal sections of the chancel arch. The mightiest portions of the church date from the following period of the Decorated style. The chancel has brasses commemorating its founder, William of Longthorne, who was rector from 1345 to 1352 and this is consistent with the style exhibited in the chancel. The magnificent 7-light eastern window is a masterpiece well worth a visit in its own right. The western doorway is also contemporary Decorated in style whilst much else is later and Perpendicular. The western tower with its broaches in the ashlar spire is a fine example of a Perpendicular tower and something of a landmark in these rather flat-lands. Both aisles and, rather typically, the clerestory are later still and probably carry a 16th century date and are mature Perpendicular in style. For once Pevsner fails to mention a substantial Victorian restoration although the pulpit and rood screen were reworked in the 1860s, so if a restoration occurred it was light and sensitive. Immediately in front of the churchyard a substantial car park makes for an easy visit, the churchyard with ivy-covered brick-walling surrounding it, is entered by a set of metal gates. There are trees close by both the western end and the southeastern corner which call for care in selecting aspects for the photographer.