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

The Parish

The chapelry of Hornton, its mother parish being Horley, lies in the extreme north of Oxfordshire forming a stretch of the border with neighbouring Warwickshire. Hornton is located roughly 6 miles northwest of the market town of Banbury and sits just over a mile east of the A422 road which connects Banbury with Stratford upon Avon. Hornton is a small and compact village nestling in a valley within Oxfordshire's stretch of the northern Cotswold range, its limestone being much used in the village properties and casting an umber hue to the village in evening light, a picture-postcard setting. The shallow soils of the Cotswolds do not lend themselves much to arable farming but even so a mixed regime of almost equal proportions arable and pastoral could be found here. Hornton sits high on the dip slope of the range with the dramatic escarpment lying a few miles further west within Warwickshire. Hornton is drained southeastwards by a small tributary of the Sor Brook, itself a tributary of the River Cherwell which is joined to the south of Banbury, the latter meets the Thames at Oxford and then through the capital to the North Sea. Hornton is sited within a deeply cut valley, at 150 metres at the stream and rising to almost 190 metres up the valley slopes, land continues to rise to nearby Edge Hill above the drop of the escarpment reaching 215 metres at local heights. The land of the chapelry was equivalent to a small southern English parish at around 1,400 acres within which a population of close to 600 parishioners may be found, the volume of marriages recorded does, however, indicate that most took place at the mother church of Horley. Hornton is not specifically mentioned in Domesday Book.

The Church

St John the Baptist's church sits at the heart of Hornton, just west of the extensive triangular village green and accessed by the short dead-end stub road of Church Lane. Outwardly the church appears all to be from the later medieval periods covered by Decorated and Perpendicular styles but Pevsner investigations internally reveals an earlier origin. A round pier with scalloped capital found within the northern arcade are indicative of a 12th century origin for that piece and reveal that an earlier church was extensively rebuilt during those later periods. Such was the rebuild that almost all appears to be late 13th to early 14th centuries. The Decorated period is represented mainly by the aisles which show they were cut through earlier work, Decorated style windows can also be found in the chancel. The western tower is the principal Perpendicular piece, its three-stages showing many of the features of that period. For once Pevsner fails to mention any Victorian work, indicative of either no restoration or one that was light and sensitive. Parking is best found around the village green and the short walk along Church Lane takes you to the churchyard. A few trees gather closely around that Perpendicular tower but otherwise there are few obstacles for the photographer.