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

The Parish

The chapelry of Balscote, sometimes rendered Balscott, lies in the extreme north of Oxfordshire not too far from both borders with neighbouring Warwickshire & Northamptonshire. Balscote is located about 5 miles west of the market town of Banbury, it is a chapelry of the wider parish of Wroxton. Balscote is a small and compact village situated a half mile south of the A422 road which links Banbury with the Warwickshire town of Stratford upon Avon. Balscote would have largely earned its living from farming, a mixed regime with sheep rearing predominating. Balscote is drained by the infant Sor Brook which heads southeastwards joining the Cherwell south of Banbury, heading south the Cherwell meets the Thames at oxford and thence eastwards through the capital to the North Sea. Balscote is sited at around 150 metres above the sea and sits on something of a plateau with the nearby Sor Brook cut 25 metres deeper, local heights rise to a further 10 metres higher. Balscote was only consecrated as a full parish in 1821, then just over 600 acres were allocated from the wider parish of Wroxton, those 600 acres would have supported a population of close to 200 parishioners, albeit marriages prior to 1821 would have been recorded at Wroxton. In Domesday times Balscote was one of the many possessions of Bishop Odo of Bayeux, an equally small place offering just 3 ploughs and a small meadow.

The Church

St Mary Magdalene's church sits at the heart of this picturesque village on the eastern side of Shutford Lane. The church is essentially a creation of the 14th century Decorated style, a reused lancet window is, however, indicative of perhaps a rebuild at that time of an earlier building. The church has a nonstandard arrangement of its features with the tower built above the southern porch rather than in the usual western position of this period. The tower is also curiously thin and only buttressed to the height of the doorway arch, a perilous design that has fallen in many similar churches. The topmost stage of the tower is the only piece with later connections, the battlemented bell-stage being in the Perpendicular style. For once Pevsner does not mention (or criticise) any Victorian restoration so one can assume that if it occurred it was light or sensitive. The church is built in an elevated position and set behind fronting properties, a substantial flight of steps being needed to reach the churchyard, space for a single car at their base. The churchyard is open and relatively free of photographic obstacles.