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

The Parish

The parish of Wye is located in southeastern Kent not too far from its southern, English Channel Coast. Wye is located about 5 miles northeast of the large industrial town of Ashford. Wye is a large village, formerly a small market town which sits in lanes on the eastern banks of the River Great Stour about 2 miles east of the A28 which connects Ashford with Canterbury. Wye has a long history seemingly an important manor for the Saxon kings in pre-Conquest times. Whilst Wye never developed into a substantial market town it is a large village and home to a bustling agricultural college. At the time of this transcript Wye would largely have earned its living from farming with a mixed regime covering arable, pastoral as well as fruit & hop growing. Wye is drained by the Great Stour which heads northeast through the city of Canterbury to reach the North Sea through Sandwich Bay. Wye is sited between 30 & 50 metres above the sea, its fine 17th century bridge over the river being its low point while more modern developments have started to spread up onto the nearby chalk downlands which rise to local heights of almost 180 metres on the road to Hastingleigh. Wye parish was one of the larger in the area, it covered almost 7,300 acres and would have supported a population of almost 1.650 parishioners. In Domesday times Wye was held by Battle Abbey and could offer an impressive 26 ploughs, meadows and woodland plus 4 mills.

The Church

St Gregory & St Martin's church sits on the northern side of Wye's main, east to west running High Street. The history of this church is complex and masks a disaster that shaped the present building. Its origins are of a large collegiate church from the early English Gothic period with a 13th century date for the major parts. The original building was of the traditional cruciform plan from that period with a central crossing tower. Little remains of that 13th century building beyond the heavily restored western doorway. A major calamity befell the building in 1686 when the central tower collapsed taking with it the chancel and transepts of that cruciform church. The damage was replaced in the early 18th century by the present form with its curious squat southern tower and minute chancel. Further alterations made by the Victorians in the 1870s result in the present curiosity. The church sits behind a low brick wall with an open gateway to the street, the churchyard, protected from the street by mature trees, opens out widely and is crossed by multiple tarred paths (one is followed by the North Downs Way national trail) giving adequate angles for photography.