England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Horbury St Peter & St Leonard

The Parish

The chapelry of Horbury, within the wider parish of Wakefield, lies in southwestern Yorkshire within the West Riding and lies roughly 3 miles southwest of Wakefield. Horbury is a substantial small town which sits on the A642 road which connects Wakefield with Huddersfield. Once a fairly small village sitting on the northern banks of the River Calder, Horbury expanded significantly as the industrial revolution brought woollen mills to the area to bring in folk from a wide area ins earch of employment. Today's Horbury is almost part of the wider urban area of greater Wakefield, housing spreading east from older parts of Horbury is separated only marginally from Ossett, to the north, and Wakefield, to the northeast. Horbury Bridge to the south of the town was the sight of most textile mills whilst the underlying coal was also mined adding to the economy. Modern developments came early to Horbury, the canal of the Calder & Hebble Navigation being followed by the Leeds to Manchester railway line whilst squeezing between Horbury and Wakefield one finds the modern M1 motorway. Horbury is drained eastwards by the Calder which joins the Aire near Castleford and reaches the North Sea through the Humber Estuary. Horbury is sited on a sloping site, rising from 30 metres at Horbury Bridge to 80 metres in the town, land rises across the Calder reaching 150 metre local heights within a couple of miles. Horbury chapelry is sized very similarly to a southern lowland parish, covering almost 1,200 acres of the wider Wakefield parish, the population would have been close to 1,200 parishioners at the start of this transcript period rising to over 2,500 by its end. In Domesday times Horbury was a possession of King William, himself, and was a middling sort of place offering 13 ploughs as well as the usual meadows & woodland.

The Church

St Peter & St Leonard's church sits on the eastern side of the town's Queen Street in the higher part of the town. Prior to the construction of today's church a small Norman Romanesque church stood on this site and was demolished to make way for this stunning replacement. As can be seen the church is a relatively modern example built, in this case, between 1790 and 1794 in a classical style. Pevsner is much taken with the architecture which is highly unusual describing the church as "elegant and distinctively original" and "standing comparison with the London works of Wren & Hawksmoor" a tribute indeed from him. The church is in a classical design with an unconventional shape being an elongated octagon with transeptal projections from the northern and southern sides which contain separate entrances. The most striking feature of the design is, however, the elegantly diminishing tower which rises from the western end and is as Pevsner describes a "striking landmark for miles around". Pevsner speculates that it takes its design as tribute to London's St Martin in the Fields church in Westminster. Parking for the church can be found in New Street to the church's east, the church is a typical urban church in sitting almost flush with the town's pavements, sadly the cluster of trees around the church's southeastern aspect removes the better aspect from the photographer's tool-set, whilst the trees are pleasant they do somewhat obscure the admiration of the design.