England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Chobham St Lawrence

The Parish

The parish of Chobham lies in northwestern Surrey roughly 3 miles northwest of the town of Woking. Chobham sits on the A319 road, a linking road joining the A320 (Woking to Chertsey) road with the A322 (Woking to Bagshot) road. Chobham is a crossroads village, the A319 appears from the east, doglegs south and again exits through another right-angled bend westwards, the A3046 headed for Woking direct forms the southern arm of the crossroads. Most of the properties in Chobham line this complex staggered junction with the north/south spine being the High Street. The wider parish is, however, extremely extensive and there are subsidiary settlements, to the north Burrowhill is almost contiguous, to the west West End is actually much larger then Chobham, it sits as a largely modern development on the edges of the Surrey heaths military training areas. It is heathland that dominates Chobham parish over 2/3rds of the parish acreage is described by early gazetteers as "waste & common" indeed the main farming of the area was in scattered farmsteads enclosing more fertile areas of the heath, the result was high levels of rural poverty comparable with areas such as Dartmoor. The heath would have been exploited for broom, for light grazing, for peat cutting and for charcoal from the copses that are dotted around. Within Chobham itself weaving of both flax and silk dominated the village economy. From the 1600s onwards brick-making, exploiting local clay deposits, became a major source of employment in the area. Modern developments have largely kept clear of the area because of its importance for wildlife conservation resulting in little of the commuter growth that characterises much of Surrey. The modern M3 motorway passes through to the north but with junction serving Chobham. Chobham is drained eastwards by the headwaters of The Bourne which meets the Thames to the east of Chertsey, the Thames continues generally eastwards passing through the capital to the North Sea. Chobham is sited at around 30 metres above the sea in generally flattish terrain, to the north on Chobham Common a spot height of 94 metres marks the highest ground locally. The parish covered much of northwestern surrey, its 13,000 acres making it one of the most extensive in lowland England, that acreage would have supported close to 2,000 parishioners by the end of the transcription period, the volume of marriages recorded is, however, more indicative of an average of 1,200. In Domesday times Chobham was one of those settlements which, with 49 households, just scraped into the top 20% of settlement by population, held by Chertsey Abbey it offered 16 ploughs, meadows & woodland and had 2 mills.

The Church

St Lawrence's church sits on the eastern side of the High Street to the south of the zigzag course of the A319 and sits opposite the inns and small shops typical of a large village's High Street. The church has had a complex history which Pevsner goes to some length to detail. In summary the church owes its origins to the earliest times of stone-built churches, it is at its heart an 11th century Saxo-Norman church, the original stone church covered a footprint equivalent to half that of the present nave and it is believed to have been constructed c1080. Early in the 12th century Norman Romanesque period the nave was extended through the addition of a 4-bay arcade and a transeptal chapel. The western tower complete with a leaded spire was erected early in the 15th century in the Perpendicular style and later in that century the western porch was also added. Two major periods of Victorian work are recorded, that of 1866 added the 5-bay northern aisle and arcade and restored many of the interior fixtures, the second of 1898 rebuilt both the chancel and the transeptal chapel and again revisited the fixtures and fittings. High Street is a busy thoroughfare with no parking outside the churchyard so safe parking must be sought elsewhere and the church visited on foot, views of the western tower are best from the street, views of the church in landscape are impeded markedly by trees from southern angles leaving only northern viewpoints for the photographer.