England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Bruntingthorpe St Mary

The Parish

Tthe parish of Bruntingthorpe lies in southern Leicestershire roughly 5 miles northeast of the market town of Lutterworth. Bruntingthorpe sits around 2miles west of the A5199 road which connects Husbands Bosworth with Leicester. Bruntingthorpe is a small village built around a "T" junction of lanes with most properties lining the lane headed northwards. The village sits immediately north of its former World War II airbase which has found new life as a proving ground. It offers diverse test tracks, including long asphalt and off-road courses. The site also functions as an active airfield and has a rich history involving jet engine testing, aircraft storage, and even the occasional air show. At the time of this transcript the parish was dominated by pastoral farming with early gazetteers estimating roughly 3/4s of the parish acreage as pastoral, also the parish was engaged in the traditional stocking making using frameworks. Bruntingthorpe is drained northwards by a small tributary of the River Sence which when reached turns northwest to meet the Soar and then the Trent for the long journey to the North Sea arriving though the Humber Estuary. Bruntingthorpe is sited at just over 130 metres above the sea with land rising still higher to the south reaching just over 170 metres in places in rolling countryside. Bruntingthorpe parish was small by Leicestershire standards, covering just over 1,100 acres it would have supported a population of about 400 parishioners. Domesday Bruntingthorpe was shared two ways with Hugh de Grandmesnil and the Count of Meulan having roughly equal shares, 10 ploughs backed by meadows and woodland and also a mill made for a moderately prosperous community for the time.

The Church

St Mary's church sits on the western edge of the village quite close to the proving ground and accessed usually by a track leading north from Bruntingthorpe Road. Sadly there is very little of the medieval remaining of this church after extensive rebuilding in the 1870s almost totally recreated the church. Only the basal portion of the western tower remains and that shows sufficient but scant details enough to assign the previous church to the Early English Gothic period of the 13th century. Starting in 1873 with the main body of nave and chancel, the whole church has been reconstructed from the ground upwards, the western tower, rebuilt on its medieval base, followed in 1874 from which build it acquired its signature saddleback roof. Where the track leaves Bruntingthorpe Road there is sufficient space for a vehicle to get off-road, a shady walk northwards soon brings you to a churchyard with no significant obstacles for the photographer.