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

The Parish

The parish of Cornwell lies in the extreme northwest of Oxfordshire in an area where numerous counties meet in  a jumble of confusing county boundaries that were redrawn in 1974, at the time of this transcript Cornwell formed part of Oxfordshire's boundary with neighbouring Worcestershire with both Warwickshire & Gloucestershire also very close. Cornwell is located roughly 3 miles west of the market town of Chipping Norton and sits just over a mile southwest of the A44 road which links Chipping Norton with Moreton in the Marsh. Cornwell is a tiny estate hamlet, not really large enough to call a village which sits on and mostly north of a broad lane linking Adlestrop with Chipping Norton, most of the parish acreage being held by the owners of the Manor house. Both Manor house and the village properties were extensively redesigned by Clough William-Ellis, the village being an idealised Cotswold village if a little twee by modern standards. Cornwell sits in the Cotswolds with rather thin & poor soils on limestone, as a consequence sheep dominated the local farming economy. Cornwell is drained southwards by a small tributary of the River Evenlode which heads off southeastwards to eventually meet the Thames to the northwest of Oxford, the latter passes through Oxford and the capital to reach the North Sea. Cornwell is sited at around 160 metres above the sea in the rolling countryside of the Cotswolds were land continues rising to a local high point of 234 metres at the barrow of Chastleton Barrow and its ancient fort. Cornwell was one of Oxfordshire's smaller parishes covering only a little over 800 acres within which barely 100 parishioners would have resided. In Domesday times Cornwell was an equally rural and small place, held by Earl William son of Osbern it could muster just a single plough, meadows & pastures but did have a mill.

The Church