England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Rugby St Andrew

The Parish

The parish of Rugby lies in the extreme east of Warwickshire close to both the borders with neighbouring Northamptonshire and also with Leicestershire. Rugby is located roughly 10 miles east of the city of Coventry and sits at a meeting of several major road, the A426 (connecting Leicester with Southam) and the A428 (connecting Coventry with Northampton) forming the main crossroads of the town. At the time of this transcript Rugby was merely a medium sized market town, the commercial hub for eastern Warwickshire and parts of the adjacent counties with a Saturday market, monthly fairs and the specialist trades which could not be supported in a village community. Rugby sat on the southern banks of the youthful River Avon and its commercial activities would have been supplemented by pastures along the river and arable farming on drier land. Rugby's modern growth has been spectacular, from a small market town of barely 1,000 folk to the second largest town in its county with an estimated population of in excess of 77,000 that has engulfed several formerly rural parishes within its spread. It is modern developments admixed with the fame of its school that fueled the growth that is continuing today. First to arrive was the Oxford Canal in 1773 with relatively minor impact, of more major impact was the arrival of two railways beginning in 1838, both the London to the North West line and branches to Coventry, Leicester, Leamington Spa and Stamford (the latter three mostly dismantled today) also arrived creating conditions for the growth of heavy industry that once marred the northern parts of the town. Today it is the modern motorway network that fuels Rugby's growth, the modern M1 & M6 meet to the northeast of the town and its central position with fast road links to every part of the country makes it the destination of choice for distribution centres which nowadays litter the surrounding countryside. Whilst the heavy industry has waned, light industry and the service sector continue to employ many folk in the town and, of course, its famous private school (which gave its name to the sport) still dominates a sector of the town. The River Avon drains the town westwards, crossing the county to meet the Severn at Tewkesbury and thence to the sea through the Bristol Channel. Rugby is sited at around 110 metres above the sea in gently rolling countryside where local heights within a few miles rise little more than a further 10 metres higher. The parish of Rugby was fairly typically sized for this area, covering just under 1,600 acres it would have supported a population during this transcript period of around 1,500 parishioners. In Domesday times Rugby was little more than a rural village, held by one Thorkil of Warwick, a Saxon survivor, it could muster just 6 ploughs but did possess a mill, quite a contrast to today's bustling and extensive town.

The Church

St Andrew's church sits at the heart of the old centre of Rugby on the southern side of Church Street and to the northeast of the crossroads formed by the town's two major roads. Today's church would be unrecognisable to the participants in these marriages as it received a major rebuild in the late 19th century which totally transformed what had been a small church largely of the 14th & 15th centuries. That small church in a mixture of Decorated & Perpendicular styles was based upon nave, chancel augmented with a western tower and a northern aisle. Between 1877 & 1879 the old church became just a small part of much larger building sized to fit the town's ever increasing population. A new much larger nave was constructed, building over an 1831 southern aisle, leaving the original portion of the church as a northern aisle. Despite this major change further work followed in the 1890s when the stupendous steeple of 182 feet height was added to complete the building. Like most urban churches, parking close by is difficult but not impossible in the surrounding smaller streets. Sadly the church is hemmed in by close commercial premises and the hum of traffic along the busy street that is Church Street. A difficult challenge, indeed, for the photographer to adequately capture such a large building in this tightly constrained setting.