England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Adisham Holy Innocents

The Parish

The parish of Adisham lies in eastern Kent roughly 7 miles southeast of the city of Canterbury. Adisham sits a half mile northwest of the B2046 road, a linking road joining the A2 (Canterbury to Dover road) with the A267 ( Canterbury to Sandwich road). Adisham is a rather linear village with its church and a concentration of properties being at the northern end of a long lane lined with properties and headed southwest. Adisham sits on the chalk, but here it lies parallel to the land surface giving thin soils and rolling countryside which was well served for sheep grazing at the time of this transcript, today with the advent of modern machinery & fertilisers it is largely arable. Modern developments have come to the parish, the railway line linking Canterbury with Dover passing through without granting Adisham a station. As the chalk underlying the parish is porous this limits on-surface drainage until, to the northeast, the Wingham River emerges running into the Little Stour & Stour in turn before reaching the nearby North Sea through the port of Sandwich. Adisham is sited at around 40 metres above the sea with land rising steadily to the southwest to around 100 metres at the course of the North Downs Way National Trail. At around 1,800 acres Adisham parish was fairly typically sized for an rural southern parish, within that acreage it would have supported a population of close to 350 parishioners. Strangely, in Domesday times, Adisham was much larger than today's humble village with a population large enough to place it amongst the largest 20% by population recorded in the Book, assets of 43 ploughs and a small meadow made it a wealthy holding for the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Church

Holy Innocents' church sits at the northern end of the village on the southern side of Pond Hill, the churchyard is raised upon a mound south of the road and sits well back behind grassy verges. The church has its origins in that enlarged settlement of Domesday times, the 12th century. The earliest fabric being 12th century windows gracing the faces of the crossing tower. The cruciform layout is typical of Norman churches and Pevsner speculates that the original cruciform church was a smaller affair enlarged by expansion of the arms of the cross during the late 12th and into the 13th centuries. The eastern arm, the chancel shows large lancets and a priest's doorway of the Early English Gothic era of the mid-13th century. Of a similar date is the transept forming the northern arm with a western extension of a small chapel. The western arm of the nave has a 13th century core but also shows work continuing into the early 14th century with Decorated styling replacing the Early English Gothic & Norman Romanesque of the earlier wings, whilst the southern arm is of the very short Transitional period at the cusp of 13th into 14th century. Forensic examination internally reveals the crossing to be late 12th century but reinforced with 14th century work to prevent collapse. As is common a Victorian restoration, here of 1870, saw some changes as well as a refresh, the most noticeable being the pyramidal topping added to the tower. Most folk seem to park on the verges of Pond Hill from where it is a little climb to the gates of the churchyard which is relatively free of obstacles for the photographer.