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

The Parish

The parish of Templecombe, also known as Abbas Combe, lies in the extreme southeast of Somerset, indeed it forms a small part of the border with neighbouring Dorset. Templecombe is located around 4 miles south of the small market town of Wincanton and stands on the A357 road which connects Wincanton with Blandford Forum in Dorset. Modern communications split the parish too, the main rail line from Salisbury to Yeovil & Exeter runs through the parish. There are two distinct settlements to Templecombe either side of a small brook & the rail line, Templecombe itself to the self and Abbas Combe to the north both are small & compact villages grouped along the A357. The references in the name of Templecombe refer to a priory house of the Knights Templar which was present here until the dissolution of Henry VIII's era. At the time of this transcript the area's economy would have been mainly engaged in pastoral farming, today with the advent of heavy machinery a move to arable has taken hold. Templecombe is drained by small tributaries of the Bow Brook which join, in turn, the Rivers Cale then Stour eventually reaching the English Channel through Christchurch Harbour. Templecombe is sited at around 90 metres above the sea in rolling countryside, local heights reach 185 metres at nearby Windmill Hill. Templecombe parish was fairly typically sized for its area, it covered almost 1,900 acres and would have supported a population of around 450 parishioners. In Domesday times the two settlements were enumerated separately, Abbas Combe held by Shaftesbury Abbey & Templecombe by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, collectively they could offer 9 ploughs as well as meadows, pastures & woodland.

The Church

St Mary's church sits within Abbas Combe on the eastern side of the A457 as it rises from the railway crossing. Outwardly a Perpendicular styled church Pevsner hints at earlier origins by noting the nave's southern doorway as being clearly older. The design is unusual in having the tower placed to the south of the church. The church, however, received major restoration during the Victorian period which has masked much of the dating evidence, the northern aisle also dates from that period when both nave and chancel were in Pevsner's words "much renewed". The main road rises quite steeply through Abbas Combe and parking can be found at the junction with School Lane by the entrance to the church which sits in an elevated position. Entrance is by wooden gates at the both southern & northern end of the site. Once within the churchyard has no impediments to photography.