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

The Parish

The parish of Wouldham lies in the northwestern portion of central Kent roughly 3 miles south of Rochester and sitting on the eastern banks of the River Medway. Wouldham sits a half mile east, across the Medway, of its nearest significant numbered road, the A228 road linking Rochester with Tonbridge. Wouldham is a rather linear village stretching parallel to the river for a little more than a half mile from the church at the northern end southwards, the village expanded in the 19th century to serve the cement works which dominates the southern end of the village. At the time of this transcript Wouldham would have been a farming village, early gazetteers estimate that arable constituted roughly half of the parish acreage with the remainder a mixture of meadow, pasture, marsh & woodland. Modern developments have come a plenty to Wouldham, the high speed railway line linking London with the Channel Tunnel passing through the eastern part of the parish closely following the line of the modern M2 motorway en route to Canterbury. More sedately the North Downs Way National Trail passes equally through the parish although being a mile east of the village does not generate many overnight stays given the proximity of Rochester. Wouldham is drained northwards the short distance to the outer Thames Estuary by the Medway, passing through Chatham & its iconic dockyards en route. Wouldham is sited below 10 metres above the sea but the ridge of the North Downs dominates to the east rising to local high spots of 180 metres on nearby Blue Bell Hill. At just over 1,500 acres Wouldham parish was fairly typically sized for its area and function, within that acreage would have been supported a population of around 300 parishioners. In Domesday times Wouldham was a holding of the Bishop of Rochester and held an important fishery which drove the population sufficiently high enough to place tiny Wouldham amongst the largest 20% of settlements recorded in that book, its other assets, of 8 ploughs and the usual meadows & woodland, were fairly typical of a small rural settlement in contrast.

The Church

As already mentioned All Saints' church is almost the northern most building in the village and sits on the western side of High Street squeezed between road and river. Pevsner singles out the church as a prime example of a church in continuous change throughout its life and showing signs of each stage in its progress. The church was begun in late Saxon times, around the time of the Norman invasion, and fabric of that period, a quoin and the narrower half of the chancel's walling, dates from that early time, even showing reused Roman brick in its fabric. Expansion followed in the 12th century when both the northern & southern aisles and the northern chapel were begun c1200. The east window of the chancel, an elegant design states Pevsner, is classic Early English Gothic of the 13th century and lancet styled windows are also found of the same period. The final medieval piece is the northwestern tower, its unusual position caused by proximity to the nearby riverbank, which has will donations indicating a build between 1460 & 1483 placing it into the Perpendicular era. As is typical the Victorian restorers also had their say, an extensive restoration of 1880 making many changes to complete today's church. Street parking is available north of the site which is entered through a stone lychgate. The church sits somewhat uncomfortably close to a row of conifers standing to the south which so somewhat limit the favoured southern aspects and requiring some ingenuity from the photographer.