England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Rodney Stoke St Leonard

The Parish

The parish of Rodney Stoke, the parish taking its name from the Rodney family who held the manor from at least the 15th century, lies in the northern portion of central Somerset roughly 5 miles northwest of the city of Wells. Rodney Stoke sits on and mostly southwest of the the A371 road which links Wells, through Cheddar to the A38 (Bristol to Exeter) road at Axbridge. Rodney Stoke, itself is one of a string of spring-line settlements lining the southern edge of the limestone range of the Mendip Hills, most properties sit alongside narrow lanes heading out into the Somerset Levels that lay to the southwest. Today Rodney Stoke is not the largest settlement within its parish, Draycott, once smaller, lying a mile to the northwest has expanded to be twice its mother village's size. The parish geography is, therefore, dominated by two distinctly differing land-forms, vast grazing marsh to the southwest used mainly for cattle and steeply rising and water-less limestone hills to the northeast, here the grazers are sheep on much poorer soils. Modern developments have come and gone, the railway line paralleling the A371 has closed and been largely dismantled. A series of main-made drains traverse the grazing marshes the short distance to the River Ax which drains the parish northwestwards to reach the outer Bristol Channel to the south of Weston-super-Mare. Rodney Stoke sits on gently rising ground between 20 & 30 metres above the sea but at their back-doors rise the Mendips in steep slopes such that it takes only 2 miles to reach 265 metres on the top of the Mendips, graced by many tumuli and more modernly by the area's motorcross circuit. Covering just over 2,300 acres Rodney Stoke parish was fairly typically sized for its area, that acreage supporting a population of close to 350 parishioners. In Domesday times Rodney Stoke was held by Bishop Geoffrey of Coutances and was a typical mid-sized rural holding, 7 ploughs backed by meadows, pastures & woodland and with a mill.

The Church

St Leonard's church sits southwest of the village's centre within a right-angled bend of one of the lanes heading out across the Levels, Honeyhurst Lane. Whilst there has undoubtedly been a church here since Norman times only fragmentary details indicate it was a 12th century construction. The church shows the distinct signs of a major rebuild during the period between 1470 & 1500, when Perpendicular styling was probably at its peak of flourishing. A few similarly fragmentary hang-overs from the earlier part of the 14th century remain intact, the Decorated-styled stoup in the northern porch and the piscina but otherwise all is late-Perpendicular in style. The church follows the standard layout of that era with nave & chancel augmented with a western tower, it is however augmented by both northern & later a southern chapel for the Rodney family. Internally the monuments to that family are a major portfolio of fine work and a draw in themselves. A typical Victorian restoration of 1879 completed the major work on the church adding the southern chapel as well as performing a thorough restoration. Honeyhurst Lane is narrow but a beet-clamp opposite appears to operate as an informal car-park. The western tower looms above the lane making the better views from that lane but all of the favoured southern aspects are available in an open and uncluttered churchyard.