England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Easington near Guisborough All Saints

The Parish

The parish of Easington (the qualifier is necessary to distinguish it from that in the East Riding) is located in the extreme north of Yorkshire forming a stretch of the northern North Sea coastline and sitting roughly 10 miles east of the market town of Guisborough. Easington sits on the A174 road which links Guisborough with Whitby and is a small and compact village with most properties lining that road and in small developments either side. The wider parish included a detached chapelry at Liverton which was licensed for marriages and has its own separate page within this project. At the time of this transcript Easington was principally a farming parish, whilst containing a stretch of coastline there was no port given the steep cliffs that line this stretch, with arable farming in the dominance despite its northern setting, early gazetteers place it 2.3rds of the parish acreage. In modern times the discovery of alum beneath those towering cliffs powered an extractive industry that employed many at nearby Boulby. Modern developments in the form of a railway line were constructed to support the alum mines and is still a freight-only line today. In more recent times the mines have become a laboratory for the esoteric physics teams searching for obscure particles and "dark matter", the depths of the alum mines shielding their equipment from unwanted radiation. More visitors, however, come to admire the scenery especially from the cliffs which are followed by the Cleveland Way National Trail. Easington is drained the short distance to the North Sea by Easington Beck which reaches the sea through the picturesque port of Staithes, a tourism hot-spot. Easington is sited at around 130 metres above the sea but ironically the highest land hereabouts hits 213 metres high above the sea at Boulby Cliff. Like most northern parish Easington was quite extensive, covering a little over 3,600 acres it would have supported a population of close to 600 parishioners. In Domesday time Easington was almost at the northern limit of sites covered in that book, despite this it did warrant an entry, held by Earl Hugh of Chester it was largely described as "waste" with only a single plough together with some meadow & woodland, there was, however, potential identified for many more ploughs which were eventually realised.

The Church

All Saints' church sits at the heart of the village at the junction of the A174 with Grinkle Lane. Sadly this is not some medieval masterpiece but a late Victorian replacement and not the first replacement for the medieval church either. A earlier church of 1772 replaced that early church and was, in turn, replaced by today's building in 1889. Pevsner goes to great lengths to re-discover the only trace of the original building, a Norman Romanesque chancel arch, indicative of the early origins of the forerunner, built into the southern side of the upper stages of today's tower. Besides this oddity there was little to excite Pevsner who's description would have been no more than a handful of other lines of description. Street parking can be readily found in Grinkle Lane outside the churchyard which has a walling of large stone blocks with metal gates sat at the junction. Sadly the church sits within a veritable forest of trees through which it is almost impossible to obtain a clear and uninterrupted view, matters improve in winter following leaf fall but it still is an impossible challenge for the photographer.