England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Womenswold St Margaret

The Parish

The parish od Womenswold lies in southeastern Kent roughly 7 miles southeast of the city of Canterbury and 10 northwest of the port of Dover. Womenswold sits just under a mile east of the A2 road which connects Canterbury with Dover. Womenswold is a small village largely consisting of a single short street together with a scatter of farms and cottages. Much of the area is underlain with chalk which created poor soils but Womenswold sits just north of this area and shared both sheep pastures with more arable landscape with more than half the parish acreage set to cereals. Modern developments have come to the parish, the London to Dover railway line being constructed just over a mile to Womenswold's east whilst the busy A2 carries heavy traffic to and from the Channel ports. With much of the bedrock being porous there is little surface drainage but some makes its way westwards into the Mail Bourne morphing into the Little Stour and joining the Great Stour before reaching the North Sea through the port of Sandwich. Womenswold sits on something of a ridge at around 100 metres above the sea, the landscape whilst gently undulating rarely reaches much higher. Womenswold parish was fairly typically sized for this area, covering just over 1,400 acres it would have supported a population of just over 250 parishioners. Womenswold is not specifically mentioned in Domesday Book.

The Church

St Margaret's church sits on the western side of The Street at its junction with Church Lane. The church has ancient origins, the nave is the oldest portion, believed to be Norman Romanesque in style and dating from the 12th century. Both chancel to the east and tower to the west are slightly later and in the Early English Gothic style fashionable in the early 13th century. There have been, of course, a few modifications over the years but they are, in this case, relatively minor. A few windows in the nave were replaced in the 14th century in the Perpendicular style whilst a brick southern porch was added in the early 18th. The usual Victorian restoration took place in 1869 to result in today's church. The Street is fairly narrow so care is required when seeking parking. The churchyard is raised on a mound and unfenced with few obstacles to the photographer.