England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Cobham St Andrew

The Parish

The parish of Cobham lies in northern Surrey roughly 10 miles northeast of the town of Guildford and 20 miles southwest of London. Cobham at one time stood on the A3 road which links London with Portsmouth but, thankfully, that road has been rebuilt as a bypass to Cobham's north. Cobham was initially founded as a manor of Chertsey Abbey and 4 distinct centres once made up the parish, Street Cobham, on the A3, Church Cobham & Downside, both on the banks of the River Mole, and Tilt Cobham, standing to the southeast on the road to Stoke D'Abernon. Collectively these 4 settlements made up a substantially large village. At the time of this transcript Cobham would have principally been a farming parish, early gazetteers estimate that roughly 50% of the parish acreage was set to arable farming with a further 25% in pasture, at that time there was still considerable woodland within the parish. Modern developments have come to Cobham and whilst it was avoided by the railways the A3 is nowadays almost a motorway standard road whilst to the southwest the modern M25 carves its way around the capital. All of this has lead to substantial growth within and around Cobham with most of the original separate spaces between the settlements now infilled and Cobham extends as part of an urban landscape for almost 3 miles eastwards toward Esher, a flourishing commuter town rather than a large village. The River Mole drains the parish southwestwards but soon turns north to reach the Thames opposite Hampton Court, the latter flows through the capital to the North Sea. Cobham is sited at between 20 & 30 metres above the sea in gentle terrain where land rises gently eastwards to reach a height of 63 metres in nearby Oxshott. Cobham parish was fairly extensive for a southern rural parish and extended in a peninsula of land for some distance eastwards, covering just under 5,200 acres it would have supported a population of close to 1,600 parishioners. At Domesday Cobham was held by Chertsey Abbey and was a fairly wealthy holding offering just 10 ploughs, the usual meadows & woodland but possessed 3 mills.

The Church

St Andrew's church sits within the old settlement of Church Cobham, on the banks of the River Mole and the southern edge of Cobham. St Andrew is a rather ancient church with Pevsner speculating that the western tower, of flint and pudding-stone, pre-dates the Conquest showing styles that might be Saxo-Norman and either late 11th or early 12th century. The other principal early piece is the northern chapel of the chancel which is clearly 12th century and Norman Romanesque in style. The remainder of the church, the main body of nave and chancel, is as Pevsner states a "farrago of restoration & enlargement" due to the many changes wrought since medieval times. A few 15th century Perpendicular windows remain as perhaps an indication of the origins but Pevsner declines to substantially date these pieces preferring simply to document the main periods of change. Work is found from 1826, the early 1850s, mid 1860s, 1872 & finally 1909 as changes have come to the basic structure. We should be thankful that the earliest pieces have been largely left intact. Access is off Bridge Road where the church has a substantial car park at its junction with the lane leading to the churchyard, sadly the church sits fairly tightly to the southern edges of the churchyard making these aspects difficult and requiring aspects from the more open north to adequately capture the church.