England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
North Tidworth Holy Trinity

The Parish

The parish of North Tidworth lies in the extreme east of Wiltshire, indeed it forms part of the border with neighbouring Hampshire. North Tidworth is located about 7 miles northwest of the large Hampshire market town of Andover and around 6 miles northeast of Amesbury. North Tidworth sits on the A338 road which connects Salisbury with Marlborough. At the time of this transcription North Tidworth was a relatively small village specialising in sheep rearing on the chalk downlands, nowadays its is dominated by the military presence with Tidworth Camp being somewhat larger than the village. Having acquired the Tidworth estate in the late 19th century the site has expanded over the years acquiring the military hospital as well as large accommodation areas. The camp was an important staging post for US forces prior to D-day in World War 2. The area around North Tidworth has a long ancient history being dotted with tumuli, earthworks & ancient track-ways all part of the Stonehenge landscape. The parish is drained southwards by the River Bourn, it joins the Avon at Salisbury before reaching the English Channel through Christchurch Harbour. North Tidworth is sited at around 110 metres above the sea in the shallow valley of the Bourn, land rises to both east & west to almost 200 metres. Wiltshire downland parishes are often quite large for southern parishes and North Tidworth followed that trend, it covered just over 3,000 acres and would have supported a population of just over 400 parishioners. In Domesday times North Tidworth was shared between Bishop Odo of Bayeux and Edward of Salisbury, despite offering just 5 ploughs and some pastures the parish was taxed as a very high income parish.

The Church

Holy Trinity church is tucked away behind modern housing just west of the A338 route through the original village. The church is essentially a single-build Perpendicular building with the normal nave, chancel and western tower layout. The tower is rather squat and has been extensively repaired at some time in the past. The building makes much use of the local flint, albeit the repairs are in brick. The building merits little analysis from Pevsner being simply a rather nice normal parish church for a small country village. A new road leads through housing to the churchyard, the building sitting with its eastern end flush to the road there being no bordering wall. The churchyard, before the modern southward extension, is rather cramped and the church is totally hemmed in from the best sun angles making for a difficult building to adequately capture.