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

The Parish

The parish of Shorne lies in northwestern Kent roughly 4 miles southeast of the port of Gravesend and also forming a short stretch of the county's northern coast with the outer Thames Estuary. Shorne sits about a half mile south of the A226 road which links Gravesend with the city of Rochester. Shorne has three main lanes leading to its centre each carrying a share of the properties of what is a substantial village, in modern times the village has also expanded southwards to encompass the subsidiary settlement of Shorne Ridgeway. The parish is unusual in having an extensive forest within its bounds, Shorne Woods Country Park, which protects the village from the noise and bustle of the transport corridor formed by modern developments to the south. The parish has its share of traditional Kentish crops, orchards are still marked to the village's northeast, the parish also carried extensive areas of grazing marsh along the Thames embankments as well as typical eastern arable farming. Modern developments have come in abundance to the parish, through the northern portion the railway line between Gravesend & Rochester passes whilst to the south runs the A2 becoming the modern M2 motorway within the parish, this route has since been followed by the high-speed rail link connecting London & Paris through the Channel Tunnel. Because of porous underlying geology there is little surface drainage close to the village with water only emerging through the network of man-made drains feeding the outer Thames to the north. Shorne is sited on a rising site, the properties along the A226 standing at 40 metres, the church at 75 and Shorne Ridgeway at 100 metres above the sea, land continues rising beyond the A2 where the Roman Fort at Cobham Hall reaches 111 metres. Comprising just under 3,100 acres Shorne parish was one of the more extensive in northeastern Kent, that acreage supporting almost 900 parishioners. Shorne is not specifically mentioned in Domesday Book but the manor of Merston, held by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, merits a mention if only for its tiny meadow.

The Church

St Peter & St Paul's church sits tucked away down a narrow alleyway south of the main centre of the village. As Pevsner states in his prologue this is a church where every century from 11th to 15th has made some contribution to its architecture making it unusually interesting for a simple village church. The earliest fabric is Saxon and likely pre-Conquest, the later construction of the northern arcade pierced such a Saxon wall and its western bay also incorporated 11th century masonry. The northern aisle shows signs of having been begun in the 12th century in a Norman Romanesque style with pointed arches on round responds. Major work followed in the 13th century saw the completion of the northern aisle, a new chancel arch and northern chancel chapel all in Early English Gothic. The final years of the 13th century saw the Saxon chancel extended by a factor of 3-times its original length during what would have been the short Transitional period. The 14th century saw much of the southern face reworked in a typical Kent style banded with alternate flint and stone, the wider southern aisle was also added. The later 15th century saw only minor modifications to windows with Perpendicular styled replacements for worn out earlier versions but also added today's typical Perpendicular western tower complete with diagonal buttresses and topped by an octagonal turret on its northeastern side. A major Victorian restoration in 1875 saw many changes renewing almost the entire southern side of the church as well as replacing much tracery, an act of which Pevsner strongly disapproved. Whilst locals use the narrow approach for parking visitors should find space in the main village streets before approaching on foot, the lane ends in a set of wooden gates granting entry to a spacious churchyard with few obstacles, and those easily avoided, for the photographer.