England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Hunsingore St John

The Parish

The parish of Hunsingore lies almost centrally within Yorkshire in the northwestern corner of the West Riding and roughly 4 miles north of the town of Wetherby. Hunsingore is a small and compact village which sits a mile east of the A1 (now upgraded to motorway standard as the A1M) on the northern banks of the winding River Nidd. Most properties within the village sit alongside the dead-end lane which runs south towards the river and hall from the Washford to Cattal lane. Given the village's flood-plain location pastoral farming would have formed the mainstay of the economy, the rich pastures on the banks of the Nidd keeping excellent fodder for dairy & beef cattle, on drier parts of the wider parish cereals would also have been grown. Modern developments, not only the nearby motorway, have also come to the area, the railway line between York & Harrogate passes through the north of the parish giving the former township of Cattal its station. The Nidd drains the parish eastwards to join the Ouse and passing through York to reach the North Sea through the Humber Estuary. Hunsingore is sited at around 30 metres above the sea, land is at or close to that height for many miles in gentle terrain. Hunsingore parish was of a moderate size by West Riding standards, covering just over 3,700 acres it would have supported a population of just over 600 parishioners. In Domesday times Hunsingore was a relatively small place, shared almost equally by Count Robert of Mortain and Erneis de Buron it could muster just a handful of ploughs and a small woodland.

The Church

St John's church sits at the junction of Hunsingore's dead-end lane and the main east to west lane connecting the village with the A1M. Sadly this church would not be recognised by those listed in this transcript as the "venerable structure" in which those ceremonies occurred was demolished and replaced by today's church in the 1860s. The style chosen for the church was that of the Decorated style fashionable in the early 14th century albeit evidence points to the original church being older than that. Whilst the church is undoubtedly attractive it was clearly of little architectural interest to Pevsner whose account is short and merely factual. The church sits within a triangular site elevated above road level and banked with local stone walling, the main entrance is at the apex of the triangle where an elegant four-arched stone lychgate grants entrance, parking may be found to the east of that. For the photographer the church presents something of a challenge as it has many accompanying trees which take away many of the favoured angles.