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

The Parish

The parish of Feltwell St Mary, Feltwell had, for part of this transcript period, twin parish churches, St Nicholas being merged into St Mary during the period under consideration, lies in the far southwest of Norfolk forming an lengthy stretch of the border with neighbouring Cambridgeshire, it is also not too far north of the border with Suffolk. Feltwell is a large village located roughly 6 miles north of the Suffolk town of Lakenheath and which sits on, and mostly west of, the B1112 road which links Lakenheath through to Stoke Ferry. Feltwell's earliest properties are immediately west of the B1112 gathered around its twin churches, later, more modern, development has extended the village westwards into the adjacent Fenland either side of the lane which heads to Southery. The village has grown to being a substantial settlement of roughly a mile from east to west, almost market town in size. Most mappings of parish boundaries do not distinguish to which parish areas of the wider parish align so are wholly treated as belonging to St Mary given the closure of St Nicholas. Feltwell sits upon an extensive area of Norfolk's Fenland, a rich area with large flat fields today but which was mainly set to pasture at the time of this transcript, early gazetteers place almost 60% of the parish acreage as such. Today the area is almost totally devoted to growing crops, not only the typical ones of cereals, beet & oil-seed but specialist table vegetables are something of a Fenland speciality. The villagers would have supplemented their farming incomes with some weaving producing bombazine & crepe in particular. Prior to man's intervention Feltwell would have drained into the Little Ouse or the Wissey but the great Fenland drainage projects created the "Cut-Off Channel" connecting the two and most of Feltwell's water utilises that to eventually reach the Great Ouse and the North Sea through The Wash. Feltwell is sited below 10 metres above the sea, just sufficient to be above olden times flood-levels, land hereabouts is mostly below that height further west but gradually rises out of the Fen eastwards reaching almost 40 metres before the land is swallowed into the forested areas further east. The combined parish acreage of St Mary & St Nicholas was one of the most extensive in its county, covering over 14.500 acres within which it would have supported a population of close to 1,500 parishioners. In Domesday times Feltwell was equally important, sufficiently large enough to count amongst the largest 20% of settlements recorded in that book, shared between William de Warenne, Ely Abbey & the King, himself, Feltwell offered an impressive 26 ploughs, extensive meadows with much smaller woodland and also held a mill & 2 fisheries making it a very wealthy set of holdings, indeed.

The Church

St Mary's church is now the sole parish church of the large village following the closure of St Nicholas, it stands at the centre of the oldest properties in the village on the northern side of Bell Street which runs westward from  the B1112. The church is a typical East Anglian mixture of Decorated & Perpendicular styles from the 14th & 15th centuries although later restoration to the northern face has introduced some inappropriate styles from the earlier Early English Gothic period. The earliest parts of today's church are from the first half of the 14th century and utilise the Decorated style, this style is shown by the chancel, with its large 5-light eastern window, and by the 5-bay southern arcade, internally the sedilia and piscina are also dateable to this period from their style. The later 14th century saw the change in styles to that of the Perpendicular and this style is shown well in the big windows of the southern aisle and also in the church having a clerestory. A fire which partially destroyed the earliest western tower, does, however, allow detailed documentation of the dating for the creation of its replacement, that which we see today is recorded in donations of 1494 and of 1508, the letter for glazing the completed structure. As already mentioned the major Victorian restoration was focused on the northern face of the church, besides refreshing the entire face, and introducing Early English Gothic style lancet windows it created chapels for both nave and chancel. Bell Street is sufficiently broad to allow on-street parking outside the churchyard which has the typical East Anglian flint wall with a brick topping surrounding it. As the church, however, sits uncomfortably close to the southern edges of the churchyard the better views are actually from the street, itself.