England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Weston St Peter

The Parish

The parish of Weston lies in northeastern Suffolk about 3 miles south of the market town of Beccles. Weston is very small, little more than a hamlet, and sits just east of the A145 road which connects Beccles through to the A12 at Blythburgh. It is presumed that Weston was an estate parish where all land was held by a single landowner and in-migration discouraged as no distinct village has developed. Having said that this is an area with many parishes cheek-by-jowl and despite food quality arable farmland each parish would have held a small population. Like most Suffolk parishes Weston would have been dominated by arable farming and today the broad fields of cereal, oilseed and beet still dominate the landscape. Weston is drained eastwards by the headwaters of the Hundred River which makes its way the short distance to the North Sea reaching it just south of Kessingland. Weston is sited at around 15 metres above the sea in rather gentle landscape where local heights rarely reach above 30 metres for many miles. Weston parish was fairly typically sized for this area, covering just over 1,500 acres it would have supported a population of close to 200 parishioners. In Domesday times Weston was held by no fewer than 4 landholders, including King William, himself, collectively the parish could offer just 6 ploughs together with meadows and patches of woodland.

The Church

St Peter's church sits around 100 yards east of the A145 on the southern side of Church Lane which heads towards Ellough. There are traces of Norman age fabric but they are traces, a blocked widow in the nave and the restored southern doorway. The chancel of the church is somewhat later and in the Early English Gothic style of the 13th century, showing the lancet windows of that period. Both nave and western tower are a little later and Decorated in style. The southern doorway was restored and turned to brick in Tudor times and the church received the usual Victorian restoration to arrive at today's church. Church Lane is narrow but a verge outside the wooden gates of the churchyard permits a car to park. A pathway leads the way to the church which is set well back from the road in the southern quadrant of the churchyard, this places it close to the trees of the southern border and dies somewhat limit the angles available for photography.