England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Foxcote St James

The Parish

The parish of Foxcote, also recorded in some documents as Forscote, lies in northeastern Somerset not too far from its border with neighbouring Wiltshire. Foxcote is located about about 2 miles east of the small town of Radstock on the southern slopes of the valley of the Wellow Brook. There is very little to modern Foxcote, and at the time of this transcript that was also the case, a straggle of properties along the lane rising southwards from the Wellow Brook and sitting a couple of miles north of the A366 road which connects Radstock through to the Wiltshire town of Trowbridge. A small farming community Foxcote would have had a mixed farming regime with both arable and pastoral in roughly equal parts. The Wellow Brook drains northeastwards to meet the Avon to the southeast of Bath and turns back westwards to reach the Bristol Channel through the latter's iconic gorge. Foxcote's sloping site ranges from 65 metres at the Brook to almost 115 metres at the higher, southern, end in incised countryside of steep sided valleys, local heights continue to rise towards the south to reach almost 180 metres at the A366. Even by Somerset standards Foxcote parish was tiny, covering less than 600 acres it would not have supported 50 parishioners. In Domesday times Foxcote was a little larger, held by one Bishop Geoffrey of Coutances it could offer 4 plough, the usual meadows, pastures & woodlands and there was a mill down on the Wellow Brook.

The Church

St James' church stands towards the higher, southern, end of the hamlet on the western side of the narrow lane that forms its main thoroughfare. A small and simple church, as befits a tiny parish, the nave & chancel are augmented by a real curiosity an skinny tower more like a bellcote which adorns the western end. The church, however, is not mediaeval having been rebuilt in 1721. The decorative battlements and pinnacles were also added at a later date, unspecified in Pevsner. As one approaches from the south a large farm building largely obscures and dwarfs the church but the entranceway to that farm is the only viable parking spot, with care. The churchyard, hedged to the road, is entered by a gateway immediately beyond that farm and the churchyard is relatively free of photographic obstructions.