England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Cheriton St Martin

The Parish

The parish of Cheriton lies in southeastern Kent forming a stretch of the county's southern English Channel coast. Cheriton is located roughly 2 miles northwest of the port of Folkestone and sits on the B2064 road (former route of the A20 road from Folkestone to London). Cheriton also included within its bounds the coastal settlement of Sandgate. Whilst Cherition would have been a separate and discrete village it has been gradually absorbed into the expanding urban development that is Folkestone until today it is a contiguous suburb of the latter. Cheriton as a coastal community would have used both the land, sitting on chalk mainly used for grazing of sheep, and the sea although without its own port it would have looked to nearby Folkestone for access. The area today has seen huge changes due to to modern developments, the coast to the west of Sandgate was modified by the construction of the Royal Military Canal, the London to Folkestone railway line cuts through the parish. In more recent times the M20 motorway also carved a route through the north of the parish and yet more recently the extensive terminal for the Channel Tunnel took away swathes of the north of the parish, what was once rural is inextricably urban today. A chalk stream drains through the west of the parish to reach the nearby English Channel to the west of Sandgate. Cheriton is sited at between sea level at Sandgate and 60 metres above the sea by the church and the B2064. Cheriton parish was fairly typically sized for this area, covering close to 1,800 acres it would have supported a population of just under 1,200 parishioners. Cheriton is not specifically mentioned in Domesday Book.

The Church

St Martin's church would have sat in rural isolation to the west of the parish centre but today properties have crept ever closer to its site perched high above Horns Lane which follows the chalk stream's valley down to the sea. Whilst the church has seen much change over the centuries it is an ancient edifice with 11th century Saxon portions still remaining. The rough arch above the western doorway together with much stonework within the nave's western wall have been accepted as being pre-Conquest in origin and thus making the church one of the earliest in its county. From the later Early English Gothic period of the early 13th century comes the remainder of the tower and and the northern aisle. Further work around the turn of the 14th century followed with the southern aisle. But it was the Victorian period in which most change took place, a heavy restoration in the late 1870s making substantial changes to result in today's church. Whilst access, by a sloping pathway, can be found from Horns Lane it is better to follow the signage through a housing development to the large car park on the western side of the site, off Queen's Avenue. Whilst the churchyard is rather large it is heavily wooded making for a tricky building to adequately capture for the photographer.