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

The Parish

The parish of Bickenhill lies in western Warwickshire not too far from its border with neighbouring Worcestershire. Bickenhill is located roughly 4 miles northeast of the town of Solihull and sits a quarter mile south of the A45 road linking Birmingham with Coventry. Bickenhill is a much changed parish with extensive modern infrastructure hereabouts, old maps show a simple small and compact crossroads village within a broad and extensive and largely rural parish. Like most rural parishes in this area farming would have been dominant with almost equal percentages of pastoral and arable measures, with the increasing urbanisation of the area little of the rural has survived but farming of those patches has changed little other than to become more arable in line with national trends. Modern developments have come in plenty, first to arrive were canals with the Stratford, Warwick and Grand Union passing through the parish. Railways followed with the London to Birmingham line also passing through with Birmingham International station within the parish. The A45 is nowadays a high-speed dual-carriageway highway and the modern M42 motorway carves through to the east. Add in Birmingham International Airport and the National Exhibition Centre and the reality of the nature of Bickenhill parish today becomes apparent. A small brook leads eastwards to the River Blythe where matters turn north, the Blythe merges with the Tame and eventually the Trent before turning again to the east on that river's long journey to the North Sea arriving through the Humber Estuary. Bickenhill sits on a ridge of high ground at around 110 metres above the sea, land barely rises higher for some distance, a spot height of 125 metres to the southwest being the local high point. At almost 3,800 ares Bickenhill parish was large in area and contained roughly 750 parishioners within its bounds. In Domesday times Bickenhill was a more typical small rural holding, held by Thorkil of Warwick, who appears to be a Saxon survivor, it could muster just 5 ploughs together with the usual meadows & woodland.

The Church

St Peter's church sits towards the northeastern edges of the compact former village on the northern side of Church Lane. Parts of this church are from the earliest stone-built times with the northern arcade given the date of c1150 and within the Norman Romanesque style, the arcade shows sturdy rounded piers and totally un-moulded arches characteristic of the simplistic designs of that era. This arcade was obviously attached to a contemporary nave and indeed traces of that earliest nave can still be seen despite a 14th century rebuild, billet mouldings in the arch of the southern doorway, reset however, and a niche above the doorway. The 14th century rebuild began in the first half of that century when Decorated styling was in vogue, the 2 light northern window of the aisle showing that rather well. Work continued onward into the Perpendicular period when the stand-out feature of the western tower was added, built in a pale local sandstone and topped with a spire this is a landmark for some distance. Many phases of repair and rebuild are recorded for the tower which has had a mixed history culminating in a lightning strike which required complete rebuilding of the top 20 feet of the spire in 1887. In addition to the Perpendicular western tower there is a northern chapel of similar age and style. Pevsner lists an array of Victorian and later restorations all culminating in today's church, notable being work of 1898 and 1916. A broad pavement sits west of the entrance allowing safe off-road parking for a visit, the church sits within a rather confined churchyard which is raised above road height and banked with large blocks of local stone, given the compact size better views are made from Church Lane rather than within the tight churchyard itself.