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

The Parish

The parish of Brampton Ash lies in northern Northamptonshire not too far from its border with neighbouring Leicestershire. Brampton Ash is located about 4 miles east of the Leicestershire market town of Market Harborough and sits on the A427 road which connects Market Harborough with Corby. There is very little to modern day Brampton Ash, just a couple of groups of farms together with the church. Brampton Ash would have been a small farming community at the time of this transcript and today it is much the same, the farming would have been a mixed regime with both arable & pastoral in practice, today with the advent of heavy machinery it has moved more towards arable. Brampton Ash is drained northeastwards by a small head-water of the River Welland which is joined to the northwest of Corby, thence to the North Sea via Stamford & Spalding and exiting through The Wash. Brampton Ash is sited at around 130 metres above the sea in gently undulating countryside, classic hunting country, land rises barely 10 metres higher westwards. Brampton Ash parish was fairly typically sized for its area, it covered just under 2,400 acres and would have supported a population of just 100 parishioners. In Domesday times Brampton Ash was marginally larger and shared 3 ways, a small share with Countess Judith and larger shares for Robert de Tosny & Robert de Bucy; collectively the parish could muster 11 ploughs and the usual meadows & woodland.

The Church

St Mary's church sits on the southern side of the A427 roughly midway between the two groups of farms that constitute modern day Brampton Ash. The church is a composite crossing the fashion change from Decorated into Perpendicular and probably representing a build commenced in the former and finished in the latter architectural styles but as a continuous build. The earliest portion and Decorated in style is the chancel within which Pevsner found the western window to be attractive and intricate. The remainder of the church is in the Perpendicular style and the tall and dominating western tower noticeably so. For once Pevsner does not mention a Victorian restoration so clearly if one occurred it was light & sensitive. The church sits in an elevated position relative to the A427, grassy banks rising up to the churchyard. A brick-woven area exists for parking and is better approached from the east to access safely. Sadly the churchyard is rather tight to the church and trees crowd the southeastern aspect, getting back sufficiently to adequately capture that tall tower requires entering nearby field, fortunately a footpath, followed by the Midshires Way Trail, enables that viewpoint.