England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Carshalton All Saints

The Parish

The parish of Carshalton lies in northeastern Surrey roughly 3 miles west of the town of Croydon. Carshalton sits on the A232 road which links Croydon with Epsom. Carshalton is a much changed place, early maps show a small town, a decayed market town which had been granted its market in the reign of Henry III but had lapsed due to strong competition from both Croydon & Epsom, lying on the slopes rising towards the North Downs. The town was dominated by the twin estates of Carshalton House, to the west and 18th century house in grounds laid out by Sir John Fellowes, and Carshalton Park to the south a former medieval deer park and picturesque grounds for which the lavish manor house was never completed. Throughout the medieval period and into the period of this transcript Carshalton was almost exclusively an arable farming parish with arable outnumbering pastoral acreage by 7:1. The River Wandle runs though the parish and provided power for many mills, initially flour mills dominated but as the 18th century progressed they diversified into paper & parchment, snuff, bleaching agents and for processing seed oil. Whilst the market status may have been lost Carshalton remained a centre for trade and specialist skills. The modern developments of the railway with lines arriving from almost every direction sparked 19th urban development on a large scale including the piecemeal sale of the former deer park for housing forming Carshalton on the Hill. Today Carshalton is an integral part of the vast urban area of Greater London, contiguous all the way through to Hertfordshire northwards and almost to the M25 motorway to its south. Nevertheless Carshalton has kept something of a rural feel, the large pond which forms its centre is still an attractive asset despite the heavy traffic of the A232. Carshalton is drained northwards by the Wandle which makes its way to the Thames reaching it Wandsworth, the Thames turns water eastwards through the capital to the North Sea. Carshalton is sited at around 40 metres above the sea at its parish church, land rises steadily southwards reaching 162 metres at Banstead before continuing upwards to the North Downs sitting at around 210 metres at the Buckland Hills. Carshalton parish was an elongated strip, being narrower from east to west than its north to south axis, it covered close to 2,000 acres and its population had grown to over 2,200 parishioners by the end of the transcript period, the volume of marriages recorded is more typical of an average of closer to 1,000. In Domesday Book Carshalton was held by Geoffrey de Mandeville and was a typical mid-sized farming manor offering 10 ploughs, meadows & woodland and also held one of its future many mills.

The Church

All Saints' church stands on the southern side of the High Street, opposite to the pond and raised well above road height presenting an unbroken brick wall to the busy traffic. The complex history of the church presents a striking visual contrast. The north elevation is a uniform Victorian neo-Gothic facade of dressed stone and dark flint with tall traceried windows. The south side preserves a patchwork of medieval rubble stone, flint, and 18th-century brickwork. The foundations of the church have been dated to the Saxo-Norman period, it is mentioned in Domesday Book, and was likely to have been a small narrow nave and chancel with a tower forming the first core. With the exception of the tower all was demolished in the mid-12th century with a new nave and northern aisle featuring an arcade of Norman columns. At the end of the 12th century the chancel was lengthened to form the Lady Chapel and a southern aisle also added in 1190. The chancel was extended further east during the 15th century being given a new Perpendicular styled east window in the process. By the 18th century the church was starting to decay, the tower upper stages were restored. By 1891 a structural collapse of the northern side had resulted in a major work requirement, coincidentally the population had grown significantly so a complete rebuild of the northern side was conceived, The northern side was largely demolished and rebuilt on a much larger scale, laying the foundation stone on October 3, 1891, while preserving fragments of the medieval south side and Lady Chapel. A few parking spots exist on Church Hill to the west of the church but otherwise this is a church to visit after first find a town car park. The plethora of trees closely surrounding the church do not make for an east subject, the photographer will do well to find good views.