England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
East Lydford St Mary

The Parish

The parish of East Lydford lies in south central Somerset about 4 miles west of the small town of Castle Cary. East Lydford sits just east of the A37 toad which connects Bath with Exeter and which, here, follows the line of the ancient Roman Road of the Fosse Way. East Lydford is a small place with properties strung a right-angled lane connecting A37 with the B3153 which heads for Castle Cary, there are also properties alongside the latter road. Like most small villages in this area farming would have been the mainstay of the economy and like much of the area that meant pastoral farming of mainly cattle at the time of this transcript. East Lydford sits on the southern edge of the floodplain of the River Brue and those water-meadows would have provided rich grazing. Modern developments have come to the area, the Great Western railway line between London and Exeter cutting through the parish but with no station. The Brue drains the parish westwards, crossing the Somerset Levels to reach the Outer Bristol Channel through Highbridge. East Lydford is sited at around 20 metres above the sea in fairly level terrain, land rises steadily to the south to almost 50 metres around Foddington. East Lydford parish was fairly small in extent, covering just over 700 acres it would have supported just under 200 parishioners. In Domesday times East Lydford was equally small, held by Glastonbury Abbey it recorded just 3 ploughs, small meadows but there was a mill.

The Church

St Mary's church has been deconsecrated and in recent times has been sold as a private dwelling with no current access, the pictures shown are those recorded by volunteers recording all listed properties and may not reflect the current state of the building. Sadly even this building was not that in which these marriages took place, the medieval predecessor having been demolished and the iteration built in 1866. A short entry by Pevsner is indicative of a building which held little architectural interest for the man.