England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Combrook St Mary & St Margaret

The Parish

The chapelry of Combrook, within the wider parish of Kineton, lies in southern Warwickshire about 8 miles east of the town of Stratford upon Avon. Combrook sits just under a mile east of the B4455 road which follows the line of the ancient Roman Road of Fosse Way through this part of the county. Combrook is a small estate village for the Compton Verney estate and most properties sit at the southern end of the extensive landscaped parkland of that estate, an estate on which the famous "Capability Brown" had a hand. As a closed chapelry, with all land held by a single land-holder, no defined village developed other than that created and leased by the lords of the manor. The affairs of the chapelry were likewise dominated by the requirements of the estate and pastoral farming would have dominated the economy. Combrook is drained by a tributary of the River Dene, the waters of which have been dammed in the estate to create a picturesque lakeside setting for the house, which becomes the Avon after a few miles, reaching the Severn matter's turn southwards to reach the sea through the Bristol Channel. Combrook is sited at around 70 metres above the sea in rolling countryside at the edge of the Cotswold ranges and where local heights reach to just under 130 metres within a mile or so. Combrook chapelry covered just over 1,100 acres from within Kineton parish and within that area a population of a little under 300 parishioners would have been supported. In Domesday times the holding was recorded as Compton Verney and was shared, almost equally, by the Count of Meulan and a rare Saxon survivor Thorkil of Warwick; collectively their holdings mustered 15 ploughs and extensive meadows.

The Church

St Mary & St Margaret's church sit within the estate village in a fork on the northern side of the rising lane leading towards Kineton. There is little of this church that would have been recognisable to the persons listed in this transcript. All of the building dates to the 19th century albeit utilising a style of c1300. The chancel is the earliest portion and dates from 1831 yet was restored in 1863. The remainder of the church is a building of the later 1860s. The church is clearly of little architectural interest for Pevsner whose description is brief and merely documents the principal elements. The main entrance to the site is within the fork itself where a small space allows a car to get off road. Church Hill leads off to the right and is indicative of the rising site with a short flight leading beyond wooden gates into the churchyard which is open & unclusttered with no obvious obstacles for the photographer.