England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Little Compton St Denis

The Parish

The parish of Little Compton is the most southerly within the county, it forms part of the border with neighbouring Oxfordshire and also with a detached portion of Worcestershire as well as being very close to the border with neighbouring Gloucestershire. Little Compton is situated in the northern Cotswold Hills about 4 miles northwest of the Oxfordshire market town of Chipping Norton. Little Compton sits to the east of the A44 road which links Chipping Norton with Moreton in the Marsh. The area has great natural beauty and "chocolate box" villages arising from the honey-coloured limestone prevalent in the area. The agricultural regime would once have been dominated by pastoral farming within small stonewall enclosed fields, nowadays modern machinery makes arable much more likely. Little Compton sits at the foot of an elongated ridge of land running from southwest to northeast, it is topped by a Roman Road and contains many ancient monuments, a tribute to its long use as a trackway. The drainage from the parish is headed westwards to join the River Evenlode which heads south to join the Thames and eventually, after a long journey, the North Sea. Little Compton is sited at 150 metres above the sea, the ridge to its east rises a further 100 metres. Little Compton parish is of a typical size for the area, it covered around 1,600 acres and would have supported about 300 parishioners. In Domesday times the parish was shared between one Robert of Stafford & a larger portion held by the Abbey of Paris (St Denis being the origin of the church's dedication), the parish held 75 ploughs (an incredibly high number for a parish of its size - perhaps a clerical error?) as well as meadows, woodland and an equally impressive 4 mills. These assets made it a very wealthy place indeed if they can be believed, a world away from today's sleepy village.

The Church

St Denis' church sits in the slight gap of Little Compton between the group of properties on the A44 and the traditional village centre. A narrow lane leads northwards from the village main street. The church is largely a rebuild with the exception of the original 14th century (Pevsner hedges his bets with a query mark) southern tower. The remainder of the church dates from a rebuild of 1863/4 although much of the original materials, including Early English styled windows in the chancel, indicating that the original was probably 13th or 14th centuries. The church sits behind a classic Cotswold slab-topped limestone wall, metal gates grant access to the graveyard. There are a number of trees, in particular along the access lane, and they do restrict the angles from which photography can take place.