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

The Parish

The parish of Kingham lies in the extreme west of Oxfordshire, in an area of complicated county boundaries it forms part of two border, those with Gloucestershire and also with Worcestershire. Kingham is located roughly 4 miles southwest of the small market town of Chipping Norton and sits around a mile north of the B4450 road, the southerly of two such routes connecting Chipping Norton with Stow on the Wold. Kingham is a rather linear village sitting on the eastern banks of the River Evenlode with most properties lying either side of the lane that parallels the course of that river. Kingham sits within Oxfordshire's portion of the Cotswold range, the limestone rich soils gave the village a mixed farming regime, early gazetteers estimate roughly 2:1 in favour of arable as against pastoral, with the latter concentrated on the richer, but flood prone, meadows alongside the Evenlode. Modern developments have come to Kingham but some have been removed, the London to Worcester railway line passes through, granting Kingham a station to its southwest, but the branch line linking Chipping Norton with Stow on the Wold and onward to Bourton on the Water has been closed and largely removed. Kingham is drained southwards by the Evenlode which meets the Thames to the northwest of Oxford before flowing through the latter and the capital to the North Sea. Kingham is sited at around 120 metres above the sea in generally gentle terrain, the exception being the outlier of Whitequarry Hill, a reference to the quarrying also prevalent, a should of the Chastleton Barrow which tops out at 233 metres and which dominates the northern skyline of the village. Kingham parish was fairly typically sized for its area, covering close to 1,800 acres it would have supported a population of around 550 parishioners. In Domesday times Kingham was a small bit prosperous holding of William de Warenne, offering 16 ploughs substantial meadows & pastures and also in possession of a mill.

The Church

St Andrew's church sits toward the southern end of the village on the western side of Station Road, as it heads toward the village's station. Whilst the has been a church here since earliest days the present church is largely a product of the Victorian rebuilders. The western tower is all that remains of the early church and this is from one of the later periods of the medieval, the 15th century Perpendicular period. The remainder of the church has received two significant periods of rebuild, firstly the medieval chancel was replaced in 1688 but it and the rest was rebuilt again in the early 1850s, so the participants in these marriages would not have recognised today's church. The style chosen by those Victorian rebuilders is that of the Decorated period from the early 14th century, not the medieval church's original style which early gazetteers claim was Early English Gothic. Station Road has careful street parking opposite the neat lychgate that grants entry to a capacious churchyard through which runs a winding pathway to the church, itself. A single difficult tree sits in the line of the favoured southeastern aspect but all other angles are readily available to the photographer.