England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Bergh Apton St Peter & St Paul

The Parish

The parish of Bergh Apton lies in southeastern Norfolk roughly 7 miles southeast of the city of Norwich. Bergh Apton is located just under a mile south of the A146 road which connects Norwich through Loddon to the Suffolk market town of Beccles. Bergh Apton is a rather dispersed village covering quite a sizeable area with no real concentration as a centre, the mapping shows a group of properties around a triangular intersection of lanes as being the main block but there are scattered smaller groups both to the west and to the south. Like most Norfolk villages Bergh Apton would primarily have earned its living from arable farming, the soils in this area are light & easily worked making it ideal for the broad fields of cereals, beet & oil-seed that dominate the area. Whilst there is little surface drainage within the parish, the infant River Chet draws the results of field drains and ditches and skirts the south of the parish, it drains eastwards to meet the Yare west of Reedham and thence to the North Sea through the port of Great Yarmouth. Bergh Apton is sited at around 30 metres above the sea, a height which extends for some distance rarely fluctuating by more than 10 metres from that level, the terrain is gentle and lacks steep slopes. Bergh Apton parish was formed in ancient times from two smaller parishes, Bergh & Apton, Apton St Martin having been demolished in early times, combined the parish covers just over 1,900 acres and would have supported a population of close to 500 parishioners. Bergh Apton is not specifically mentioned in Domesday Book.

The Church

St Peter & St Paul's church sits away from the scattering of properties that forms Bergh Apton being located in the shallow valley of the Chet and well over a mile southeast of that triangular crossroads. Whilst the church is a typical example of the 14th century's church building boom in Norfolk it is one that has been extensively modified in a major rebuild of 1838. Some medieval fabric remain enough to date its construction to the 14th century and it is typical in having both styles of that century present, the Decorated and the Perpendicular. In particular the western tower was largely untouched by the 1838 work, they added the battlements but left much else in its original form. The 1838 restoration and rebuild was, however, extensive, besides the usual refresh of the fabric and, in particular, the windows a northern transept was added and its opposite number and the chancel almost rebuilt from the ground upwards. The church sits on the southern side of School Road where, besides the titular school it sits in close proximity to the hall. School Road is rather narrow but the verge opposite the western, wooden, gates has been erdoed by parking and allows a single car to get safely off-road. The usual flint and brick wall has backing it a row of stately evergreens effectively shielding the church from the road. Once within there are, however, few obstacles for the photographer.