England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Yatesbury All Saints

The Parish

The parish of Yatesbury lies in the northern portion of central Wiltshire roughly 4 miles east of the market town of Calne. Yatesbury sits about a mile north of the A4 road which links Calne with Marlborough. Yatesbury is a small village built slightly linearly along a dead-end lane which performs a series of right angled bends, at its northern end a pair of parallel lanes completes the notional centre. Yatesbury sits within the ancient landscape full of Neolithic monuments that culminates in the unique stone circle at nearby Avebury, between the two sits the isolated hilltop of Windmill Hill complete with hill fort whilst to the south Cherhill Down is similarly topped and comes with many tumuli and earthworks. The area is nowadays largely arable but at the time of this transcript sheep would still have dominated the local economy as they did in earlier times. As Yatesbury sits in porous rocks there is no immediate surface drainage with most water making its way subsurface to rise as various headwaters of the River Kennet to the east, the Kennet flows through Avebury before turning sharply east to eventually meet the Thames and thus head through the capital to the North Sea. Yatesbury is sited at around 170 metres above the sea but the southern horizon is filled by Cherhill Down which rises to 262 metres and is home to a stretch of the Wessex Ridgeway Local Trail. Yatesbury parish covered just under 1,700 acres so was typically sized for a southern rural parish, that acreage would have supported a population of around 250 parishioners. Whilst Yatesbury is mentioned in Domesday Book its entry is for a region rather than the specific manor, its assets of 37 ploughs and 9 mills more suited to a vast area rather than this small village.

The Church

All Saints' church sits on the western edge of the village tucked away from the road system behind fronting properties. Whilst the church has fabric dating back to 12th century Norman times without fail it has been rreset or modified in some way. The reset Norman doorway is an excellent example of later work masking the early. Similarly lancet styled windows on the western face are reused by the 15th century rebuilders. Genuinely Early English Gothic and 13th century and in situ is the 3-bay arcade showing round piers and capitals of that early period. The nave and accompanying western tower date from the later medieval Perpendicular period which give the church, externally, entirely the feel of that period. A typical Victorian restoration went further as in 1855 the chancel was entirely rebuilt as well as the remainder being restored. The church is accessed from The Avenue northwards along a narrow lane before a gravelled area allows a car or two to park, a short walk leads to the churchyard which is only marred by a few close set conifers with most aspects being available to the photographer.