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

The Parish

The parish of Godalming lies in southwestern Surrey roughly 4 miles south of the county town of Guildford, indeed such is the extent of the parish that it occupies most of the southwest of the county with, at one point, only Chiddingfold parish separating it from Sussex. Godalming sits on the A3100 road, the former route of the A3 that links it with Guildford, the A3 running west of the town as a modern highway. Godalming is a market town, though not an extensive one due to the close proximity of Guildford, it was also Surrey's workshop as a centre for manufacture of cloth and related clothing as well as silk, paper, leather, including the bark used in tanning, and hoops whilst its agricultural market traded corn & timber making for a prosperous town. The early core of the town was around 3 narrow curving streets which meet at the Market Hall, today's Godalming stretches southwards from the banks of the River Wey for over a mile, engulfing the hamlet of Busbridge, in addition there is a substantial settlement north of the Wey spreading almost 2 miles and also engulfing villages such as Buscombe and Hurtmore. The wider parish was distinctly rural and typical of the Weald, the timber traded in the town coming from the extensive forests which once covered the area, the poor soils of The Weald lead to pastoral farms in small enclosures within the extensive heaths and woodland. Modern developments arrived with firstly with the Wey Navigation, a canal to improve access to the Thames and the wider country this was followed by a railway line, through Guildford, to London which granted Godalming a station and encouraged some additional commuter growth for work in its larger neighbour as well as to the capital. As already mentioned traffic was eased in the town by the re-routing and upgrading of the A3 to modern highway standards. Godalming is drained northwards by the Wey which carves through the chalk-ridge of the North Downs at Guildford before continuing to meet the Thames at Weybridge, the Thames heads eastwards through the capital to the North Sea. Godalming is sited on rising ground from 40 metres above the sea at the Wey's bridge to 80 metres at its southernmost suburbs, a few miles to the south the Greensand Ridge tops out at 162 metres on Vann Hill. Godalming parish was amongst the largest in extent within the area covering almost 7,000 acres and supporting a population of around 4,300 parishioners of whom early gazetteer's estimates place 50% within the town, itself. In Domesday times Godalming was already important enough to be comfortably within the top 20% of settlement by population, retained by King William for himself its assets of 25 ploughs, extensive meadows and woodland and no fewer than 3 mills making for a wealthy holding indeed.

The Church

St Peter & St Paul's church sits in the northern portion of that part of the town south of the Wey about 150 metres east of the station and accessed along the paved road of Church Street. The church is an excellent example showing steady growth and change across all of the centuries and changes in church architectural styles during the period of its existence and that existence began pre-Conquest but of this 11th century work only two blocked windows in the western wall of the tower remain. The church has a cruciform layout usually a hint as to its Norman origins and there is plenty from the Norman period of the 12th century remaining in particular in the tower arches and the southern wall of the chancel. The 13th century saw Early English Gothic replace Romanesque as the main form and here it is principally reflected in the lady chapel where lancet styled windows abound confirming the age. There is rather less of the 14th century and its styles of the Decorated and Perpendicular, Pevsner points to the sedilia for the former and the nave's western window for the latter. The main piece, and indeed the church's showpiece, is the central crossing tower that was built in the 14th century to replace a more sturdy Norman equivalent, this tower topped by the "huge and handsome" lead broach spire is a work of sheer inspiration and marks out the church as something special Pevsner notes numerous interventions during Victorian times with 1840 the first followed by work in 1877 - 1879, some of which reversed changes in the 1840 work, but its most important effect was from rebuilding the entire western end of the church. Whilst Church Street has a tiny number of parking places it is better to use a town car park and visit on foot for an extended visit. The western end of the church sits uncomfortably close to Borough Road whilst also being close to Church Street thus removing much of the favoured southern aspects, the extensive churchyard does provide admirable views from less-favoured aspects.