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

The Parish

The parish of Shareshill lies in south central Staffordshire about 4 miles soutwest of the town of Cannock. Shareshill is a large village which sits just west of the A460 road which connects Cannock with Wolverhampton. Most of Shareshill is built around a triangular intersection of lanes ot along each of the limbs making for a compact village. Whilst this would largely have been an agricultural area growing cereals and root crops there has been extensive modern development within the area. Firstly the Staffordshire & Worcester Canal was pushed through to the west, followed by the railway line from Wolverhampton to Stafford. More modern developments have since followed with the M6 motorway, the M54 motorway and the M6 toll motorway all carving their way through nearby such that Shareshill is surrounded by modern fast roads and other communications. This ease of access has lead to some growth in nthe village as a commuting centre to the greater West Midlands Metropolitan area. Shareshill is drained westwards by a small tributary of the River Penk which is shortly joined, the latter joins the Sow near Stafford and thence to the Trent from where a long journey follows to reach the North Sea through the Humber Estuary. Shareshill is sited at around 130 metres above the sea on something of a plateau where land rises to a local height of 183 metres within Hilton Park estate to the southeast. Staffordshire has a mixture of large and middling sized parishes, Shareshill was one of the latter, covering just over 2,800 acres it would have supported a population of close to 600 parishioners. In Domesday times Shareshill was a tiny place, held by Robert of Stafford it could muster just a single plough and an equally small piece of woodland.

The Church

St Mary & St Luke's church (although Pevsner calls it merely St Luke) lies to the west of the main junction within the village accessed by a short gravelled track northwards from Church Road. This church is not a medieval one but built in 1742 in the Georgian period. The western tower is all that remains of an earlier church it being in the style of the Perpendicular period of the 14th century. Documentary records note a church back on this site as far as the early 13th century so this present building is just one of many incarnations. The brick built nave is augmented by an apse which is internally segregated by a triple-arched screen. The southern porch with its distinctive Tuscan style columns is a notable feature. Even as recently as 2009 work was done to add an office, meeting rooms and other facilities just the more recent in a long history of change. Heading north from Church Road the short gravelled lane arrives at a car park from where footpaths radiate across the open and uncluttered churchyard allowing complete freedom for the photographer.