England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Tatenhill St Michael

The Parish

The parish of Tatenhill lies in eastern Staffordshire, indeed it forms part of the border with neighbouring Derbyshire, albeit a small portion. Tatenhill is located about 3 miles southwest of the large town of Burton Upon Trent. Tatenhill is a small and linear village built along a lane which rises steadily from the edge of the Trent floodplain up a rising valley to the north, Tatenhill is roughly equidistant, a mile west of the busy A38 (Nottingham to Birmingham road) and a mile south of B5234 which connects Burton Upon Trent through Needwood Forest to Abbots Bromley. The parish of Tatenhill included the townships of Dunstall, which had no separate registers for marriage, and Wychnor & Barton Under Needwood both of which had their own marriages. The parish covered not only the floodplain of the Trent, where pastoral farming predominated but also the eastern slopes of Needwood Forest which by the turn of the 19th century had been stripped of its hunting forest and enclosed for arable land. The Trent drains tatenhill parish to the northeast and eventually reaches the North Sea through the Humber estuary. Tatenhill is sited at around 80 metres above the sea, some 30 metres or so above the level of the Trent, land rises to the west to over 130 metres on Tatenhill Common. Tatenhill parish was quite large for a Staffordshire parish, including its chapelries it covered almost 9,500 acres and the combined population exceeded 2,200 parishioners albeit only around 430 were resident in Tatenhill. There is no specific mention of Tatenhill in Domesday Book albeit Barton Under Needwood is mentioned and is reported on that page.

The Church

St Michael's church sits on the eastern side of Tatenhill's main lane, here called Main Street. The church has its origins in the Early English style of architecture which predominated during the 13th century. Both the southern doorway & priest's door are from this period. It is evident, however, that the church was extensively renovated and rebuilt during the classic church-building era of the Perpendicular. The tower dates from that period and most of the fenestration was replaced. As ever the Victorians made their usual renovation, in this case in 1890 whence most of the interior was also replenished and re-floored in a black & white marble. St Michael's sits rather flush to the street behind a set of iron railings, the churchyard is left to mature as a wildlife sanctuary. The tower is best views from the road but a metal-railed gate grants access to a somewhat cluttered, and hemmed in, churchyard with quite restrictive angles for photography.