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

The Parish

The chapelry of Formby, its mother parish being Walton on the Hill from which it is detached, lies in the extreme southwest of Lancashire forming a lengthy stretch of its Irish Sea coastline. Formby is located roughly 12 miles north of the city of Liverpool and sits immediately west of the A565 road which links Liverpool with Southport. Today's Formby is a much altered place, indeed Formby has undergone several distinct versions over the centuries; early Formby was a small sea-port and fishing harbour but siltation closed its channel to the sea, "old Formby" is now 2 miles inland from the sea. Throughout most of its history Formby has been simply a crossroads village west of the Southport road, the area abounds with marshes and meres with poor arable opportunities so farming was primarily pastoral. With the coming of the railway from Liverpool to Southport in 1848 Formby has expanded exponentially as a dormitory suburb and erstwhile coastal resort. A failed attempt to build a typical Victorian bathing resort similar to Southport lapsed leaving Formby as a leafy suburb, such was the growth that the town, for that is what it has become, spreads for 2 miles west of the A565 and a similar distance north to south. Formby's coastline is still a major draw but nowadays for its wildlife and nature inhabiting the extensive forest covered dune systems flanking the coast. The River Alt marks the southern boundary of the town and most water finds its way to the Irish Sea through it. Formby is sited almost entirely below the 10 metres contour, its northern edges being the highest, one has to travel for sevral miles inland before that contour is breached again on the way to Ormskirk. Formby chapelry is a detached portion of the vast parish of Walton on the Hill separated by stretches of Sefton, Altcar and Halsall parishes from it mother parish, almost 6,700 acres comprise the chapelry which would have supported around 1,500 parishioners at the time of this transcript, many thousands more today. In Domesday times Formby was undeveloped with no recorded population or assets for its holder Roger de Poitou.

The Church

Formby has had multiple churches over the centuries, incursions from the sea left the original as an abandoned graveyard within the dunes and close to the shoreline. Today's St Peter sits in the northeastern portion of the town some quarter mile west of the A565 and on the northern side of Green Lane. The church is almost contemporaneous with the commencement of this transcript being finished in 1746 and thus not a typical medieval church. Whilst the main nave of the church in brick is unpretentious and lightly ornate, the western tower is the stand-out feature. Described in an early gazetteer as "a campanile tower" there is definitely something of Italian style in its make-up, the tower stands on square Doric columns forming a porch and is finished with a stone belfry cupola more at home in Venice than coastal Lancashire. Despite its relatively recent origins there has been time for major changes, in 1830 the porch at the base of the tower was infilled and in 1873 the High Victorian chancel, vestry and southern chapel were added in a jarring ashlar, finally in 1884 the timber & glass southern porch completes today's church. East of the churchyard Green Lane is widened extensively to provide safe parking outside the wooden gates, the churchyard itself has few obstacles for the photographer.