England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Blaston St Giles & St Michael

The Parish

The chapelry of Blaston, its mother parish being Hallaton, lies in the extreme southeast of Leicestershire close to the county's borders with both Rutland and with Northamptonshire. Blaston is located roughly 7 miles northeast of the market town of Market Harborough and lies a mile northwest of the B664 road which links Market Harborough with the Rutland town of Uppingham. Blaston is a tiny place little more than a hamlet, it is highly unusual that such a small place was once the site of twin chapelries, St Giles & St Michael; like most sources we have chosen to combine the two to save having two tiny pages within this project. Blaston sits in classic hunting countryside of small hedged fields mainly pastures in a gently rolling landscape, pastoral farming the mainstay of its economy. Despite Blaston's tiny size modern developments came and left the chapelry, a railway line curving from near Stamford southwards to Melton Mowbray having closed and been largely dismantled. Blaston is drained southwards by a small tributary of the nearby River Welland which is soon met south of Medbourne, water turns east and after passing through Stamford & Spalding makes its way to the North Sea through The Wash. Blaston is sited at around 100 metres above the sea in its valley setting, little hills surround rising to a local high point on the B664 at 158 metres. The pair of chapelries were assigned around 1,300 of Hallaton parish, a size comparable with parishes in this area, that acreage would have supported a population of barely 100 parishioners in the two combined. Blaston has an extensive entry in Domesday Book it is, however, readily apparent that the entry refers to a region rather than the individual manor, Blaston's contribution is thus masked within that wider entity.

The Church

Of the two churches, St Giles remains as the active church St Michael was largely demolished in 1967 and stands as a roofless ruin. St Giles' church sits at the western end of the tiny village on a gravel track headed for Medbourne. Sadly neither church was the original medieval version, St Michael had been replaced in 1868 and St Giles in 1878 by Victorian replacements so this is not the venue of those marriages and would be unrecognisable to the participants. St Giles consists of nave and chancel, augmented by an apse, with a simple bellcote raised at the western end, a tiny southern porch completes the layout. A faux Early English Gothic style was used in its construction with lancet styled windows in the main. The roughly surfaced track leaves at the sharp bend where Blaston Hill becomes Hallaton Road, the verge is clearly used for parking a few yards into the track. A low local stone wall surrounds with metal gates for entry into a churchyard that has no obstacles for the photographer.