England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
East Marden St Peter

The Parish

The parish of East Marden lies in the extreme west of Sussex not too far from the county's border with neighbouring Hampshire. East Marden is located roughly 8 miles southeast of the Hampshire market town of Petersfield and sits a half mile west of the meandering B2141 road which links Petersfield through to the outskirts of Chichester. East Marden is a small crossroads village set around a junction where 3 lanes meet at a small village green with a thatched well in its centre, a picturesque scene. Most properties within the village sit within less than 200 yards of that junction. East Marden sits within the chalk downlands of Sussex, an area renowned in the past for its sheep grazing, even by the 19th century, however, early gazetteers estimated that the acreage had become 2:1 in favour of arable and the percentage has certainly increased in more recent times. As East Marden sits on porous chalk there is no immediate surface drainage until a seasonal stream rises to the southwest at nearby Stoughton, that stream heads southwest, meets with others and becomes the River Ems just before it reaches Chichester Harbour and then the English Channel. East Marden is sited in a little hollow at around 90 metres above the sea, all around rolling downs rise to between 140 & 150 metres whilst the South Downs crests at Harting Down at 242 metres on Beacon Hill. East Marden was a rather small parish of just 955 acres which would have supported barely 50 parishioners. East Marden is not mentioned in Domesday Book.

The Church

St Peter's church stands on a little hill overlooking the green with its well. The church is one which dates from the 13th century being almost entirely completed in what appears to have been a single campaign, it is a single cell construction with no divide between nave and chancel, the likeliest postulated date for its construction is the middle of the first half of the 13th century and entirely in the Early English Gothic style. The northern doorway features a round-headed interior arch which has led some to place that feature into the earlier period of the Norman Romanesque and 12th century, others feel it is an old-fashioned hark-back. The plain and simple rectangle was first altered in the 17th century by the addition of a southern porch and further altered in 1744 when repairs and minor structural alterations are recorded. A typical Victorian restoration fell in 1875 - 1877 and early in the 20th century the final change was the addition of the northern vestry. The village lanes are quiet and parking may be found around the green or to the east of the churchyard where sits a broad farm track. The eastern end of the churchyard is lost for the photographer through thick tree cover but most other angles are available.