England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Headington St Andrew

The Parish

The parish of Headington lies in the northern portion of Oxfordshire's southeastward projecting extension roughly 2 miles northeast of the city of Oxford. Headington sits immediately southwest of the busy A40 road which links Oxford with London and which now bypasses the urban area of the city to its north. Headington is a much changed place, at the time of this transcript it was still rural and separated from its larger neighbour by extensive fields, there was a notable compact village centre around the church in the area east of today's Nuffield Manor Hospital. Early gazetteers detail a varied economy for the parish, it sits on the eastern banks of the River Cherwell which provided extensive grazing pastures as well as the clay for the many brick works in the parish, it addition the higher ground is underlain by a freestone which was of such quality that it was quarried and appears in most of the fabric of Oxford's many college buildings. Today Oxford has expanded such that Headington is merely its northeastern suburb, part of an urban area that stretches for almost 4 miles to the south but constrained westwards by the course of the Thames. Modern developments have come to the parish, the A40 nor forms part of Oxford's orbital outer ring-road and has been upgraded to dual-carriageway highway. Headington is drained by the Cherwell which soon meets the Thames in southern Oxford, the latter continuing through Reading & Windsor to London and the North Sea. Headington is sited at around 100 metres above the sea, land rises eastwards to the isolated knoll of Shotover Hill which tops out at 171 metres just east of New Headington. Headington parish was fairly substantial in size covering 2,000 acres which would have supported a population of close to 1,650 parishioners. Even by Domesday times Headington was a notable settlement of 44 households which was just enough to place it in the top 20% of settlements by population, held by the King, himself, Headington mustered 20 ploughs as well as 2 mills and 5 fisheries emphasising the importance of the Cherwell to the manor.

The Church

St Andrew's church sits on the northern side of St Andrew's Road opposite to the White Hart Inn and only a few yards from the noise and bustle of the A40. This is a church with fabric dating back to just after the time of the Norman Conquest as Pevsner tentatively dates the chancel arch as c1160, the arch is indicative of a Norman Romanesque church that was built in the 12th century and then much modified ever since. In the 13th century the church received considerable enlargement with the addition of the southern aisle and the southern tower, the aisle shows lancet styled windows of the Early English Gothic era but these have been restored in Victorian times. The aisle was completed during the short Transitional era by the insertion of its window. The great church-building era of the Perpendicular saw the chancel largely rebuilt in c1400 whilst the southern tower acquired its topmost stages complete with battlements typical of that period. Two phases of work during Victorian times saw further changes to the dimensions and layout of the church, in 1862 the nave was lengthened whilst in 1880 a northern aisle was added, it is likely restoration took place during both phases of work. There are amply sized parking bays just west of the churchyard allowing safe parking, the churchyard has local stone walling with metal gates for entry, apart from some isolated and easily avoided trees there are no significant obstacles to concern the photographer.