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

The Parish

The parish of Wilby lies in northern Suffolk not too far from its border with neighbouring Norfolk. Wilby is located roughly 2 miles south of the small market town of Stradbroke and sits on the winding B1118 road which heads southeastwards from there towards Framlingham. Wilby is a crossroads settlement, the B1118 performs a set of right angles to bend through the small and compact village. Beyond the village the wider parish has a scatter of farms and cottages across a largely arable landscape. Today farming is the main economic activity and so it was at the time of this transcript, with arable farming the predominant regime, Small streams head northwestwards to drain Wilby parish the short distance to the River Waveney, which forms the county border with Norfolk, here things turn eastwards to eventually reach the North Sea through the Norfolk port of Great Yarmouth. Wilby is sited at around 50 metres above the sea in fairly flat landscape where local heights rarely rise more than 10 metres higher for many a mile. Wilby parish was fairly typically sized for its area, covering a little over 1,800 acres it would have supported a population of just over 600 parishioners. In Domesday times Wilby was a tiny place, a holding of Bishop William of Thetford, it could not muster more than a single plough and some small meadows, a tiny place indeed.

The Church

St Mary's church sits on the northern side of the B1118 as its winds its way through the village. The church is essentially a church of the Perpendicular period, that great church-building era of the late 14th and early 15th centuries when the area's woollen production gave great wealth and enabled grateful citizens to lavish theire funds upon a grandiose church. Making extensive use of the local flint the church follows the standard layout of that period with nave and chancel and a western tower. That western tower is the finest piece of St Mary, a tall edifice with buttresses and battlements and fine decorative flushwork around the base. The B1118 is often busier with traffic than one would expect and parking opposite the churchyard on the verge should be down with care. The churchyard has iron rails backed by bordering trees surrounding, impressive wrought iron gates grant entry. Sadly the church sits too close to those trees on its southern side making for a challenge to adequately capture it on a sunny day.