England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Petton St Raphael & St Isidore

The Parish

The parish of Petton lies in northern Shropshire about 5 miles southwest of the market town of Wem. Petton is located just to the west of the A428 road which connects Shrewsbury with Ellesmere. There is not much to Petton, indeed this appears to have been the case throughout the ages. Today Petton is built largely along a narrow winding lanes that meanders west of the A428 before rejoining it a couple of miles further on. There is no distinct village, as such, merely a scatter of farms and cottages across the landscape. The area would largely have been used for pastoral farming at the time of this transcript and today little has changed except the steady creep of arable into the region. Petton is drained eastwards by tributaries of the Sleap Brook which joins the River Roden at Wem before eventually reaching the Bristol Channel via the Tern and the Severn. Petton is sited at around 110 metres above the sea on a ridge of higher land between the valleys of the Roden & Perry, land undulates between 75 and 120 metres throughout the area. Petton parish was extremely small by Shropshire standards it covered just 900 acres and supported a mere 40 parishioners. In Domesday times Petton was held by one Robert the Butler and offered just 2 ploughs, a small place indeed.

The Church

St Raphael & St Isidore's church stands slightly north of Petton's principal lane in the southern portion of the grounds of Petton Hall. The present church replaced a mediaeval building and was erected in 1727 at the expense of the local Chambre family. The building was restored in 1870 when the western porch and bellcote were added. The building is clearly of little architectural interest as Pevsner dismisses it just a few lines and rather discouragingly describes it as a "red brick box". The building is accessed by a public footpath which heads up a tarred driveway over a cattle-grid. The site is rather open and bare which presents little restriction to photography.