England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Boughton Aluph All Saints

The Parish

The parish of Boughton Aluph lies in southeastern central Kent roughly 4 miles north of the town of Ashford. Boughton Aluph sits immediately west of the A28 road which connects Ashford with Canterbury. Whilst Boughton Aluph gives its name to the parish it is merely a small group of farms and cottages together with the parish church sitting on the course of the North Downs Way National Trail. The largest settlement is Boughton Leys which sits on the A251 (Ashford to Faversham) road about a mile away to the southwest, Boughton Leys has a small presence, a hotel and an inn, on the A251 most properties lies along the twin lanes which merge to head to neighbouring Wye. At the time of this transcript and still today Boughton Aluph was a farming parish, mostly arable but with pastures to the east bordering the River Great Stour and also with extensive orchards around Boughton Leys and woodland patches, including the extensive King's Wood, shared with neighbouring Challock, which would have been coppiced and exploited for woodland products. Modern development just scrape the eastern fringes of the parish, the railway line between Ashford & Canterbury. Boughton Aluph is drained the short distance eastwards into the Great Stour which takes water northeast to Canterbury and then east to the North Sea through the port of Sandwich. Boughton Aluph is sited at around 70 metres above the sea, land rises into the King's Wood reaching the high point at 182 metres within a mile of the church. Covering a little over 2,400 acres Boughton Aluph was typically sized for this area and would have supported a population of close to 500 parishioners. In Domesday times Boughton Aluph was clearly an important settlement, its 89 households enough to place it comfortably into the top 20% of settlements by population, held by Count Eustace of Boulogne its assets were also formidable, 33 ploughs backed by meadows and extensive woodland and there were also 2 mills making for a very profitable manor indeed.

The Church

All Saints church sits west of the A28 at the end of the motorable stretch of Church Lane, which becomes a footpath beyond the church, and directly on the route of the North Downs Way National Trail. All Saints is a highly complex structure especially when viewed from the southeast, it is basically cruciform in layout with rather short transepts and a stocky central crossing tower which has a strange over-sized stair-turret at its southeastern corner which is almost completely detached from the tower. The earliest fabric, however, is that of the 13th century chancel and its northern chapel which show the characteristic lancets of that style. The remainder of the church can be reliably dated from the heraldry of its stained glass referring to individuals in the period from c1329 to 1361, the architectural style of the 5-bay aisled nave, the transepts and the tower are all in the Decorated style and were probably completed in a single campaign. The later Perpendicular period saw only the insertion of today's east window of 5 lights. Furthermore Pevsner does not detail a Victorian restoration so if one occurred it was light and sensitive and allows us to see the church as its 14th century builders envisaged. There are a few spots for parking where Church Lane meets the trail, taking care not to block farming gates. The churchyard has a few trees close to the west end and a little further away but still compromising some of the southern aspects but enough remains to satisfy the photographer.