England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Plumstead St Nicholas

The Parish

The parish of Plumstead lies in the extreme northwest of Kent forming part of the county's coastline with the Thames Estuary. Plumstead is located about 10 miles southeast of the City of London and sits on the A206 road which closely follows the southern banks of the Thames connecting London with Gravesend. At the start of this transcript period Plumstead would have been a small and separate market town and port serving its local community for central services as well as being surrounded by the market gardens and farms serving the capital. Plumstead has changed as a result of two principal impacts, the presence of Greenwich and its naval connections as well as Woolwich and its military arsenal substantially increased the population. Once railways arrived the spread of London suburbia grew exponentially engulfing Plumstead in a sea of housing, today it is an integral part of the contiguous area of Greater London. The naval & military connections of the area would have provided supplementary income from the retail, specialist craftsman and light industrial usage of a small market town. As a coastal settlements numerous small streams would have drained the parish into the nearby Thames, most today are subterranean. Plumstead is sited at between sea level and roughly 10 metres around the church, land rises gently away from the Thames towards the distant North Downs reaching local heights of 60 metres by the time one reaches Eltham & Bexley. Plumstead parish was fairly typically sized for a market town parish, it covered just under 3,400 acres and would have supported an initial population of close to 1,000 parishioners, by the end of the transcript period this population had swollen to eight times that figure. In Domesday times Plumstead was a much smaller place, shared between Bishop Odo of Bayeux and Canterbury Abbey it could collectively offer 12 ploughs and small tracts of woodland populated by swine render.

The Church

St Nicholas' church sits on the eastern side of St Nicholas Road, a small residential road leading northwards from Plumstead High Street (the A206). The church suffered extensively from damage inflicted by World War 2 bombing, the ancient mediaeval walls being somewhat shattered as a result. Surviving, however, are the western and southern walls carrying 12th & 13th century dates respectively and covering the transition from Norman Romanesque to Early English Gothic. The northern aisle is Perpendicular in style and was added in the 15th century. The tower is later still, added in 1664 which Pevsner remarks is "an unusual date for church building activity", the Stuart period not being the most stable. A substantial restoration and, indeed, expansion took place between 1907 & 1911 and of course much repair work was required once peace was restored in the 1940s and 1950s. St Nicholas' Road initially has St Nicholas' Gardens to the east, an excellent viewpoint in themselves for the church. Just before the church site the road widens to allow parking by the entrance, the church stands within a fenced churchyard with barred gates granting entry. As said the gardens grounds provide an excellent angle for the landscape views whilst there is sufficient room to appreciate that Stuart tower too.