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

The Parish

The parish of Albury lies in southwestern Surrey roughly 4 miles east of the county town of Guildford. Albury sits just over a half mile south of the A25 road which links Guildford with Dorking. Albury is a product of 19th century village clearance, the owners of Albury Park removed the villagers from the area of the park westwards to a new estate village sitting upon and south of the A248, a linking road from the  A25 through to the A281 (Guildford to Horsham) road, they old church in which these marriages was built remains within the park but a new St Peter & St Paul was built to serve the moved community. Albury sits in the northern Weald below the narrow hogs-back ridge of chalk which forms the North Downs, the parish was elongated from north to south taking in a range of the land-forms available. Thus a mixed farming regime would have been in place ranging from sheep run on the Downs, through arable and pastoral enclaves within a wood-pasture setting typical of the Weald. Both Albury Heath and the larger Blackheath denote that many areas were managed in common with pannage and exploitation of heathland products. A glance at today's Ordnance Surney mapping shows large areas of the parish under woodland which is managed both for timber and recreation.Modern developments have come to the parish, the railway line between Guildford and Dorking passing through without granting Albury a station. Albury is drained westwards by the Tilling Bourne which makes its way to the River Wey just south of Guildford, after breaching the North Downs the Wey eventually reaches the Thames, the latter passing back east through the capital to the North Sea. Albury village is sited at around 70 metres above the sea, to the north the North Downs rise to 187 metres at the ancient track-way that forms part of the Pilgrim's Way, pilgrimage trail headed for Canterbury. Albury parish was large as befits a parish sat upon the poor soils of the Weald and the greensand, covering just over 4,500 acres it would have supported around 1.050 parishioners. In Domesday times Albury was held by Count Gilbert's son Richard and offered 8 ploughs, a small meadow, much woodland and a mill.

The Church

"Old" St Peter & St Pauls' church sits within the parkland setting of Albury Park almost on the banks of the Tilling Bourne, the church was closed for worship in 1842 following the completion of the new church in the new village, it is managed today by the Churches Conservation Trust. The church has fabric dating back to the earliest times of stone-built churches and maybe pre-Conquest in its foundation. The core of the nave was first built in Saxo-Norman times in the late 10th or early 11th century, it is likely to have been a simple structure which was already cruciform in layout with a central tower. Around the middle of the 12th century the tower was thickened and reinforced and the church formally consecrated in 1140. The 13th century Early English Gothic period saw the chancel added in or about 1280 ans the southern transept added at the end of that century. The church was more-or-less completed in its layout early in the 14th century when the Decorated styled southern aisle was added, only a northern porch was added during the Perpendicular period. Changes were initiated in the 19th century by the owner, Henry Drummond, in 1820 the spire that once graced the tower was replaced by a shingled cupola and the final act was commissioning Pugin to transform the southern transept into the Drummond Chapel. Access is permitted to the old church from the formal entrance on New Road with a metaled drive leading the way. The church stands in a typical parkland setting but within a tight churchyard surrounded by trees which do somewhat limit the views available to the photographer,