England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Burton Agnes St Martin

The Parish

The parish of Burton Agnes lies in southeastern Yorkshire roughly equidistant between Great Driffield & Bridlington being 7 miles northeast of the former and 6 miles southwest of the former. Burton Agnes sits on and mostly north of the A614 road which connects those two towns. Whilst there are properties, including the village's Inn, sitting alongside the main road most of Burton Agnes lies around and oval of lanes which loop out-and-back to the northwest of the A614 focusing upon the church and Burton Agnes Hall. The hall, which is a visitor attraction open to the public, is a superb example of a medieval mansion built between 1601 & 1610, Pevsner describes the view of the hall from the south including the gatehouse and southern front as "one of the most perfect of Jacobean architecture". The hall once sat in formal gardens now converted into a small parkland area in the late 18th century. Burton Agnes sits upon the Yorkshire Wolds which were prominent in the Middle Ages for the sheep and their wool that ranged thereupon, today much of the landscape has been ploughed for cereals. Modern developments have come to the parish, the railway line linking Bridlington to York and the main East Coast Line passes to the south of the village but without granting a station. Drainage for the parish is rather sketchy passing into the northern Holderness plains tro exit to the nearby North Sea at Fraisthorpe Sands. Burton Agnes is sited at between 20 and 40 metres above the sea on ground rising into the eastern end of the Wolds, land reaches 92 metres at Rudston Beacon to the north. Whilst Burton Agnes parish was very extensive it included the chapelry of Harpham which occupied almost 2,000 acres of Burton Agnes' 7,200 acres similarly of Burton Agnes' population of close to 600 some 250 would have been Harpham parishioners. In Domesday times Burton Agnes was held directly by King William and, like much of the north following recent rebellion against Norman rule, was described as "waste" with no recorded assets.

The Church

St Martin's church sits within the centre of Burton Agnes' oval of lanes cheek-by-jowl with the grounds of the Hall and accessed by Shady Lane from the A614. Fabric of every age from the 12th to 19th century lies within the structure as change and modifications have been made across the centuries. At the core of the main body of the church lies a 12th century Norman Romanesque nave and chancel, soon after construction the nave was modified in the mid-12th century to pierce through a 3-bay arcade with sturdy piers and scalloped capitals. The 13th century Early English Gothic period saw a southern arcade added too but this too did not stay intact for long as the estate owner Roger de Somerville desired a chantry chapel so the southern aisle was rebuilt in the Decorated style in 1313. Whilst the church almost certainly has a western tower today's version dates from either the late 15th or early 16th centuries and is in the Perpendicular style and comes complete with battlements, at the same time another typical Perpendicular feature was added, a clerestory to improve internal lighting. The 18th century saw the rebuilding of the Norman chancel in 1730 retaining the 12th century chancel arch when doing so. Finally a typical Victorian restoration rebuilt the rest of the chancel in memory of the anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce father of the then incumbent. Shady Lane ends at a gravelled turning area where sensible parking can also be made. Metal gates lead into a churchyard which has a few trees mainly to the south and west but easily avoided by the photographer.