England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Westley St Thomas a Becket

The Parish

The parish of Westley lies in northwestern Suffolk roughly 2 miles west of the town of Bury St Edmunds. Westley sits a half mile south of the busy A14 road which links the east coast ports of Felixstowe and Harwich with the main motorway network via Ipswich & Newmarket. Westley just about retains its status as a discrete small village despite the close proximity of Bury St Edmunds' western suburns creeping ever closer. Most of Westley is gathered around the western side of the main north.south running lane that connects it with the A14. Like most of Suffolk's parishes Westley was and still is largely arable with cereals the main crop, the River Linnet flows a quarter mile to the south and its banks would have provided small pastures for variety. Modern developments have come to Westley, the Bury to Newmarket railway line passes to the north of the village without granting a station and following a similar line the A14 now a speedy highway beset by heavy haulage. The Linnet drains the parish eastwards through Bury to meet the Lark by its southern gates, the lark heads by way of contrast northwestwards heading out into Fenland to meet the Great Ouse and the North Sea through The Wash. Westley is sited on a ridge above the Linnet at around 70 metres above the sea, land continues to rise westwards gently to almost 100 metres just west of nearby Barrow. Suffolk has many small parishes and Westley parish was one of these, covering just over 1,200 acres it would have supported a population of around 150 parishioners. Domesday Westley was equally small and rural, shared almost equally between Ely Abbey and Count Gilbert's son Richard; 6 ploughs were backed by typical meadows & woodland and the manor had a 3/4 share in a mill.

The Church

St Thomas's church has been demolished and replaced by the new church of St Mary, the remains of St Thomas sit just south of Old Church Lane surrounded by thick hedging. Only significant chunks of the east wall commemorate the church which fell into ruin following the collapse of its tower in 1774, rather than rebuild and restore a new church was built 400 yards to the east dedicated to St Mary and opened in 1836. St Mary is built in the fashionable Early English Gothic style using lancets windows, it too suffered from near disaster as the former spire crumbled in 1959 and had to be replaced with a pyramidal roof. A footpath leads westwards from Kitson Meadows allowing access to the former churchyard, the ruins are unremarkble and ivy-covered.