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

The Parish

The parish of Bishops Castle lies in the extreme southwest of Shropshire forming a stretch of the county's border with Montgomeryshire and hence with Wales. Bishops Castle is located roughly midway between Shrewsbury & Ludlow being roughly 20 miles southwest of the former and a similar distance northwest of the latter, Bishops Castle sits immediately west of the A488 road which links Shrewsbury through Clun and onward to Knighton in Radnorshire. Bishops Castle is a small market town built upon a prominent hilltop and consisting of an oblong core of the original settlement with modern developments spreading westwards. Bishops Castle was established by the Normans as part of the defensive and pacification of the Anglo-Welsh border the castle here being built in 1127 by the Bishop Hereford to defend the border, the town was laid out as a planned Norman settlement around that feature. The castle has not survived intact being merely a few ruinous pieces of masonry. Bishops Castle was granted its market status in 1247 and for much of its history it has served as the regional centre for trade & specialist skills. The wider parish is farmed largely by pastoral means being a mixture of rich valley plains for cattle and upland grazing for sheep. Some small scale industries typical of rural market towns also employed a few such as brewing & tanning. Bishops Castle is drained southwards by the infant River Kemp which soon joins the Clun and then the Teme at Herefordshire's Leintwardine, the Teme heads east to eventually meet the mighty Severn and join with that river's long journey to the Bristol Channel. Bishops Castle is sited at between 180 & 220 metres above the sea, the hilly country to the west and up to the border summits at 416 metres on nearby Colebatch Hill in strongly undulating terrain. Bishops Castle parish was extensive covering just over 5,600 acres of which the township covered a little over 1,700 in which most parishioners lived, the population supported being close to 1,800 parishioners. Bishops Castle is not mentioned in Domesday Book.

The Church

St John's church sits on the southern edges of the town at the junction of Church Street & Kerry Lane and opposite the Six Bells Inn. Whilst the church had origins contemporary with the Norman establishment of the planned town, it was burnt and severely damaged during the Civil War and the main body was almost completely rebuilt in Victorian times. The western tower, whilst damaged in the Civil War action, survives largely intact albeit with  work of c1660 around its basal stage, the tower being Perpendicular in style. Much else of the church dates from the rebuild of 1859/60 which almost totally rebuilt the main body of the church in a Decorated style, the nave has a clerestory and lean-to aisles, the chancel has a five-sided apse and there are transeptal chapels and a northern porch. The true origins of the medieval version can be seen in the garden of the old vicarage where the original 13th century Early English Gothic south doorway has been re-erected alongside a Perpendicular styled window from the former southern transept. Church Street has on-street parking and for the fortunate few there are 2-3 spaces immediately outside the lychgate of the churchyard. The churchyard has quite a few trees impeding views, in particular that from the favoured southeast, the photographer needs to scout around to find the better angles.