England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Clapton St Peter

The Parish

The parish of Clapton lies in the extreme east of Northamptonshire forming a stretch of the county's border with neighbouring Huntingdonshire. Just to confuse matters Clapton is usually known today as Clopton and such is the spelling used by the Ordnance Survey. Clapton is located roughly 5 miles east of the small town of Thrapston and stands on B662 road, a linking road joining the A605 (Thrapston to Oundle) road with the B660 (Kimbolton to Great Gidding) road. Clapton is a small place of just a few properties sitting alongside the B662 with scattered farms and cottages across the wider parish. Like most parishes in this fertile area Clapton is an arable farming parish, large fields of cereals, beet and oil-seed are only broken up by a couple of small woodland patches. Clapton sits just to the east of the course of the River Nene and a pair of small brooks takes water to that river, the Nene passes Peterborough, crosses Fenland and reaches the North Sea through The Wash. Clapton is sited at around 70 metres above the sea on fairly level ground where a spot height of 78 metres near the church marks the highest ground in flat terrain. Clapton parish was typically sized for this area covering just under 1,900 acres which would have supported a population of close to 100 parishioners. Domesday Clapton was a larger place than today, shared between Peterborough Abbey and Eustace the sheriff it could muster 8 ploughs and a small meadow.

The Church

St Peter's church sits slightly southeast of the main concentration of properties, it sits within a fork formed by the B662 and Warren Lane. The church which sits here today carries only remnants of the church in which these marriages took place. The original St Peter was a mixture of 13th century Early English Gothic elements and those of the 15th century Perpendicular period. Unfortunately the church was struck by lightning in the 18th century and decayed to the point where repair was not viable. Today's church is as a result of the rebuild of 1863, the church was rebuilt in the faux-13th century style to replicate the former design and incorporated the original 13th century northern arcade. The church's stand-out feature is, however, its western tower complete with saddleback roof. The entrance sits on Warren Lane where worn verges indicate repeated parking, the churchyard is open and relatively uncluttered with few issues for the photographer.