England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Warwick St Nicholas

The Parish

The county town of Warwick, consisting of the twin parishes of St Mary & St Nicholas, lies in the southern portion of central Warwickshire roughly 23 miles southeast of Birmingham and 90 miles northwest of London. Warwick sits on the banks of the River Avon where a major crossing point sits, several major roads including the A46 (Lincoln to Gloucester) road meet, the A46 is now a super-fast dual-carriageway bypassing the town to its west. The Avon constrains the shape of the town with all of Warwick sitting to its north as a large oval of urban development augmented with a southwestern running tail, to the southwest the town's development has been curtailed by the horse race track. Warwick has a long history, some believe it to have been a settlement pre-Roman times although evidence for this is scant. The Saxon "burgh" was established in 914 as the first concrete evidence of a settlement here. Warwick Castle, of course, is the evidence for Norman presence, built firstly as a wooden motte & bailey in 1058 and it took until the 13th century to be completed in stone. The castle stands on a crag above the Avon and is a major tourist attraction. Warwick was always been principally a large market town with little industry to despoil the town, that was achieved in 1694 when the medieval settlement was largely destroyed in a great fire. The town was born anew in stone as a market centre for trade & specialist skills for its hinterland. Both parishes include adjacent rural areas which were farmed largely by arable means with pastures alongside the rivers. The few industries that were present were those associated with market towns across the land, brewing, malting, tanning and weaving all played their part in employing the population. Modern developments have come to Warwick aplenty, first to arrive was the canal network with the Grand Union Canal linking London with Birmingham passing through the town, next to arrive was the railway with a running northwards from Banbury to connect again with the main London to the Midlands routes, finally the modern M40 motorway passes just to the southwest. The result of all this growth, especially with the status of university town in modern times, has grown Warwick substantially such that only the Avon now separates it from neighbouring Leamington Spa making a broad triangular urban area of some 4 miles on each axis. The Avon drains the parish southwestwards headed ultimately to reach the Severn at Tewkesbury from where matters head south until the Bristol Channel is reached through the Severn's Estuary. Warwick is sited at around 50 metres at Avonside with the outer suburbs rising steadily to around 75 metres, land rises in gently rolling countryside away from the Avon to local high spots touching 120 metres. Of Warwick's two parishes St Nicholas occupied the southeastern quadrant of the town plus that area enclosed in the broad meander of the Avon, its acreage was broadly compatible to a typical southern rural parish and would have supported a population of close to 3,400 parishioners. Whilst Warwick is mentioned as a holding of King William in Domesday Book its assets, as is common in large towns, is not detailed suffice to say it was an important and substantial contributor to the royal purse.

The Church

St Nicholas' church sits in the southeast of Warwick, close to the Avon and on the eastern side of St Nicholas Church Street and close to the Banbury Road. As the minor of the twin churches in the town St Nicholas receives a lesser text than the pages which Pevsner devotes to St Mary. The main reason for this is its relative modernity as the bulk of the church dates from the almost complete rebuild of 1779-1780. The single exception to this date is the western tower which only dates to 1748 anyway and was certainly refaced in the later rebuild. Further to this modernity comes the chancel which is later still, the shallow apsed chancel of 1780 having been replaced during Victorian times of 1869 by today's version at which time the northern vestry and organ chamber were also added. To add further to the modernity that Victorian chancel was partitioned off from the nave in 1985. The church is a typical large town church as befits its location with 4-bays to accommodate its substantial congregation. The road around the church are very busy with traffic and highly unlikely to yield parking opportunities, this is definitely a church to find a car park and approach on foot, there being a substantial one not far to its east. As is always the case with a large building finding sufficient distance to encompass it adequately is a challenge and a few trees clustered on the edges and around the churchyard do not help.