England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Ilketshall St John the Baptist

The Parish

The parish of Ilketshall St John (one of 4 Ilketshalls, and the smallest, in Suffolk) lies in northeastern Suffolk close to the border with neighbouring Norfolk. Ilketshall St John is located about 2 miles southeast of the market town of Bungay and sits on the A144 road which links Bungay with Halesworth. There is very little to Ilketshall St John, no village as such merely a scatter of farms and cottages across the parish. The area is flat and fertile arable land, if a little clay-ridden, modern machinery has turned almost all the land into large open cereal or beet fields. There is very little in the way of surface drainage, merely a few field drains and these generally make their way northwards to join the River Waveney and exit to the North Sea through the Norfolk port of Great Yarmouth. Ilketshall St John is site at around 20 metres above the sea and the land surface varies little across the parish. Ilketshall St John parish was small even by Suffolk standards at just over 700 acres it supported a mere 70 parishioners. In Domesday book Ilketshall St John is enumerated as part of the Ilketshall group and not separately distinguished; the collective group boasted 14 ploughs as well as meadows and woodland plus a mill.

The Church

St John the Baptist's church sits almost alongside the A144 tucked away in the junction of two joining lanes and 50 yards or so from the main road. The church has a 13th century origin with windows in the Early English style which makes it an early church for Suffolk. The building is plain and simple as befits a small parish, nave and chancel are combined into a single unit and the thin western tower and south porch top it off. Pevsner rather dismisses the building in a handful of lines, it is clearly unexceptional in architectural terms and mentions only that there was the usual Victorian restoration. The church sits within the "V" formed by the dual junction of Lodge Road and Low Road with the A144. A tall hedge and mature trees screen the graveyard from most external views but a small metal gate gives access on the Lodge Road side. Within the graveyard views are not unduly restricted and there is no restrictions to photographic angles.