England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Gressingham St John the Evangelist

The Parish

The chapelry of Gressingham, its mother parish being Lancaster from which it detached, lies in the extreme north of the main portion of Lancashire south of Morecambe Bay. Gressingham is located roughly 8 miles northeast of the town of Lancaster and sits a mile east of the B6254 road which links Carnforth with Kirkby Lonsdale. Gressingham is an upland chapelry sitting on the western banks of the fast-flowing River Lune in hilly but not mountainous countryside, the village huddles in a tight cluster around an oblong of narrow lanes with an extension eastwards to the church. The landscape is ideal for pasture, the flood-[lain of the Lune providing rich grazing for cattle whilst the more hilly areas are favoured by sheep. The Lune drains the parish southwestards passing through Lancaster to reach the Irish Sea. Gressingham is sited at between 30 and 70 metres above the sea as it rises up the Lune's valley side, land reaches 142 metres on Craggy Lot further west but is overshadowed by the 361 metres of Whit Moor to the south, a foretaste of the nearby Pennine range. Just over 1,900 acres were assigned to Gressingham chapelry an acreage that supported close to 150 parishioners. Whilst Gressingham has a Domesday entry it serves only to record its devastation as part of the "harrowing of the north" being "waste" with no recorded population.

The Church

St John's church stands at the eastern end of the village on the southern side of the lane headed across the Lune to Hornby, Whilst the church was essentially rebuilt in 1734 a few details remain to indicate what was lost when that work was carried out. Features retained dating back to the 12th century are headed by the church's southern doorway, Norman Romanesque in style. Two other parts remain from the later Perpendicular period, the northern arcade and the northern chapel's arches, both probably late 14th century or early in the 15th. Much else dates from that 1734 rebuild or in the Victorian restoration of 1862 in which features were contrived to look medieval. The entrance to the churchyard is surfaced enough for a single vehicle but little traffic passes along the lane to Hornby. A few trees placed to the northeast and east impact those areas but most of the favoured aspects are available to the photographer.