England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Wyverstone St George

The Parish

The parish of Wyverstone lies in the northern portion of central Suffolk roughly 7 miles north of the market town of Stwomarket. Wyverstone sits about a mile west of the B1113 road which links Stowmarket through to Botesdale. Wyverstone is a settlement of three distinct parts, the main village, sitting around an "I" shaped intersection of lanes,  being supplemented by Wyverstone Street to its west by a half mile and by Wyverstone Green to the southeast. Like most Suffolk parishes Wyverstone is an arable farming parish with extensive cultivation of mainly cereals the mainstay of the local economy, at the time of this transcript a more rotational method would have been in use rather than today's monoculture. Wyverstone is drained northeastwards by the infant River Dove which makes its way past Eye and Hoxne to meet the Waveney which forms the border with Norfolk, the latter heads to the North Sea arriving through the Norfolk port of Great Yarmouth. Wyverstone is sited at around 60 metres above the sea in a generally flat plain where local high spots only occasionally breach the 70 metre contour. Covering just under 1,600 acres Wyverstone parish was typically sized for its area, that acreage would have supported a population of around 350 parishioners. Domesday Wyverstone's entry is anomalous, claiming 36 households and sufficient to place it amongst the largest 20% of settlements by population, shared between 6 landholders its assets, however, match the small settlement of today with 6 ploughs backed by meadows and woodland typical of a small rural settlement.

The Church

St George's church sits towards the eastern end of the main village on the northern side of Westhorpe Road. Like many churches in its county St George is a product of the wealthy 14th century, one which seems to have been completed in a single buld starting in the west with its Decorated styled western tower. The main body of nave and lower chancel is later and from the latter half of the 14th century in the Perpendicular style, the nave comes complete with that standard Perpendicular feature of a clerestory. The southern porch of timber with carved bargeboards is of indeterminate aging as it was heavily restored to become the village's First World War memorial. The standard 19th century restoration came late to St George with the work completed in 1900 to bring the church back to good order. The churchyard is shielded from Westhorpe Road by trees with a short path leading from a triangular pull-in where a car can safely get off-road. Once beyond those screening trees there are no significant obstacles for the photographer.