England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Clarborough St John the Baptist

The Parish

The parish of Clarborough lies in northern Nottinghamshire roughly 3 miles northeast of the market town of East Retford. Clarborough is a large and rather linesr village which sits on the A620 road which heads northeastwards from East Retford towards the Lincolnshire town of Gainsborough. Early maps show Clarborough as a distinct and separate village but with time it has grown to become contiguous with its northern neighbour, Hayton, forming a strip of properties lining the A620 and its northward branching offshoot the B1403; that strip of properties nowadays extends for almost 2 miles and is supplemented by side branches too making for a substantial community. Clarborough sits within the broad flood-pain of the River Trent's lower reaches, a plain covered in deep alluvial silty deposits and making for rich & fertile soils which have favoured the modern trend towards arable farming; whilst the area is almost entirely arable, today, at the time of this transcript a more evenly balanced regime between arable and pastoral would have been in place. Modern developments abound around the village, the Chesterfield Canal, connecting that Derbyshire town to the Trent, passes immediately west whilst the railway line from East Retford to Gainsborough passes to Clarborough's south, a further branch serving the power stations that line the nearby Trent. Clarborough is drained the short distance westwards to join the River Idle, the Idle flowing northwards and then east to meet the mighty Trent at West Stockwith and thence onward to the North Sea through the Humber Estuary. Clarborough is sighted at around 20 metres above the sea in gentle terrain where the odd rolling hill rises to around 90 metres as a local high point to its southeast. Parishes in northern Nottinghamshire are frequently large in extent, Clarborough is one of these at close to 3,400 acres maybe twice the normal acreage for a southern rural parish, within that acreage the parish would have supported a healthy population of around 2,200 parishioners. In Domesday times Clarborough was shared by no more than 5 landholders, including a small share retained by King William, the largest share was held by the Archbishop of York, their collective assets were impressive, a very impressive 28 ploughs being supplemented by extensive meadows & woodland and 2 mills making Clarborough a very wealthy place for its time.

The Church

St John the Baptist's church sits on the northern side of one of the offshoots from the A620, Church Lane which wanders eastwards before petering out into footpaths and bridleways. St John has its origins in the 13th century, that early time being represented in Early English Gothic style solely by the northern arcade, evidenced by its circular piers and moulded capitals, and by the lancet styled bell-openings on its western tower. The main body of the church is from the slightly later century of the 14th century when that style became replaced in turn by Decorated and then by Perpendicular styles. Dating evidence for much of the church was, however, lost or masked by an extensive Victorian restoration of the 1870s which was very thorough in renewing the church to the evident distaste of Pevsner who deems in "very restored". Church Lane is of sufficient width to allow street parking outside the churchyard lychgate, access being either through the extensive churchyard or a long and surfaced footpath alongside. There are scattered trees around in the extensive churchyard but these are easily avoided by the photographer.