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

The Parish

The parish of Stoke Talmage lies in southeastern Oxfordshire roughly 5 miles southwest of the market town of Thame. Stoke Talmage sits about 2 1/2 miles southwest of the A40 road which links Oxford with London, it is a rather small place with no distinct village as such. The broad lane linking Tetsworth with Brightwell Baldwin carries most of Stoke Talmage's few properties with a few cottages grouped along the access lane to the church. Like most rural parishes in this area farming dominated the local economy with a mixed regime containing both arable and pastoral regimes present, the latter perhaps in greater acreage. Stoke Talmage is drained westward by the Haseley Brook, one of a number of small tributaries of the River Thame which is soon joined, the Thame meets the Thames at Dorchester and thence flows through the capital to the North Sea. Stoke Talmage sits on the northern slopes of an outlier of the nearby Chiltern range at around 90 metres above the sea, that low hill peaks at 121 metres as an isolated hill away from the main range. Stoke Talmage parish was small even by southern standards, covering just under 850 acres it was one of its county's smallest by acreage yet supported a population of around 100 parishioners. Stoke Talmage is not specifically mentioned in Domesday Book.

The Church

St Mary Magdalene's church sits tucked up a short dead-end side lane from the main lane running through Stoke Talmage accompanied by a few cottages and a farm. Whilst there are traces of the medieval, in the form of reused 12th century capitals and 13th century lancets in the western tower, the church was essentially rebuilt in 1758 These traces are perhaps indicative of the age and style of the building that was replaced. Today's church is built in a style described by Pevsner as "Churchwarden's Gothic". Despite the relative modern church there was still time for Victorian and later changes, in 1860 the eight-bay arcade, a northern aisle, a southern porch and the vestry were all added to the original structure whilst as recently as 1907 saw a new east window. The short lane, signposted "Stoke Talmage only" leads past a farm to the churchyard which is bordered by a post and rail fence and shaded from the lane by tall evergreens. A small gate leads through the latter into an open and uncluttered churchyard with no obstacles for the photographer.