England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Great Barr St Margaret

The Parish

The parish of Great Barr lies in the extreme south of Staffordshire, indeed it forms part of the border with neighbouring Warwickshire. Great Barr is nowadays part of the greater conurbation of Birmingham but was previously a rural village, it is sited about 5 miles north of Birmingham. Great Barr sits on the A34 road which connects Birmingham with the industrial town of Walsall, the M6 motorway forms a junction with this road at Great Barr and the resulting development of the wider area has filled the area with housing and businesses. It is difficult to reconcile today's urban setting with what must have been a compact village with a hall and parkland estate. The local area would have had a mixed farming regime but employment was also to be found quarrying the local limestone for building stone. It is difficult to determine the drainage for the area due to influence of man in both amending the natural drainage and canalisation of the waterways, numerous canals pass close by, the area broadly drains northwards to join the River Trent and exit to the North Sea through the Humber Estuary. Great Barr is sited at around 150 metres above the sea in a gently undulating landscape. Great Barr parish was created from a chapelry in the wider parish of Aldridge, the result would have been fairly typically sized for a Staffordshire parish, it would have covered around 5,000 acres, the population would have grown steadily during the period of this transcript to over 1,000 but the initial settlement is likely to have been merely 300 -400 parishioners. In Domesday Times Great Barr was held by one William son of Ansculf, it could only boast around 5 ploughs as well as small woodlands and meadows.

The Church

St Margaret's church sits to the northeast of modern Great Barr, adjacent to the grounds of the hall and surrounded by modern golf courses. Regrettably the church is a modern building erected in 1860 and embellished with its steeple 30 years later. The building is clearly of little architectural interest as Pevsner dismisses it in a mere handful of lines merely suggesting that the recessed spire was "nice". The church sits, behind a low brick wall and screening trees, on the southern side of Chapel Lane. Entry is at the western end of the site through a pair of metal gates, once through the trees there are few obstructions to photography.