England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Mirfield St Mary

The Parish

The parish of Mirfield lies in the southwestern part of the West Riding of Yorkshire situated almost where the land starts to rise into the foothills of The Pennines. Mirfield is a large industrial place more of a small town than a large village, its wealth and employment tied to the twin trades of wool & coal. Mirfield sits in the valley of the River Calder mainly on its northern banks and stands on the A638 road which connects the town with Dewsbury, roughly 3 miles to the east; to the southwest by around 5 miles is the large industrial town of Huddersfield. Mirfield has had rather mixed fortunes in its economy, its location on rising ground to the east of the Pennines made it unsuitable for arable farming and pastures dominated before the coming of industry. The land abounded with coal & limestone and both were worked from early times, the fast-flowing Calder also made it a notable centre for mills which powered the looms of the Industrial Revolution. Scars of mines are all that remain whilst the rail & canal infrastructure dominate the Calder valley only the rail line having more than a leisure use today. The Calder drains the parish eastwards joining the Aire in the Vale of York and making its way to the North Sea through the Humber Estuary. Mirfield is sited between 50 metres, by the Calder, up to over 100 metres above the sea, in the modern & recent developments; the town sits largely in the valley and local heights rise all around, in paces reaching over 250 metres above sea level. Mirfield parish, whilst large by southern standards, was relatively small by Pennine measures, it covered just over 3,500 acres and would have supported a large population of 6,900 parishioners. In Domesday times Mirfield was a relatively small place, held by one Ilbert of Lacy it could offer just 4 ploughs and a small patch of woodland.

The Church

St Mary's church stands on the extreme eastern edge of Mirfield sharing a site with a Norman motte on the eastern side of Church Lane. The church is Victorian having been erected in 1871 in the grounds of its predecessor. Remnants of the earlier St Mary survive in the form of tower and a single early 13th century pier. The modern church, utilising the early English Gothic style is clearly of little architectural interest to Pevsner whose description is short and typically terse. The church sits behind a rail-topped local sandstone wall, a parking area allows you to escape the traffic of Church Lane and metal gates allow entry to the churchyard. The motte site, to the church's northwest is surrounded by trees and limits views from that angle but the best views are from the south and they are uninterrupted.