Marston St Lawrence, Northamptonshire
Historical Description
Marston St Lawrence, a village and a parish in Northamptonshire. The village stands 1¼ mile NNE of Far-thinghoe station on the Banbury and Northampton section of the L. & N.W.B., and 5 miles NE of Banbury, and has a postal wall-box under Banbury; money order office, Culworth; telegraph office, Banbury. The parish contains also the hamlet of Westhorpe, and comprises 1702 acres; population of the civil parish, 344; of the ecclesiastical, with Warkworth, 530. The parish council, under the Local Government Act, 1894, consists of seven members. The manor, with Marston House, belongs to the Blencowe family, who have been resident at Marston since the tune of Henry VI. The living is a vicarage, united with the rectory of Wark-worth, in the diocese of Peterborough; net value, £445 with residence. The church is ancient, of various dates; consists of nave, aisles, side chapel, and chancel, with embattled tower; and contains sedilia, a carved oak altar-piece, a piscina, and several monuments of the Blencowes. It was restored in 1877-78.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
Ancient County | Northamptonshire | |
Ecclesiastical parish | Marston St. Lawrence | |
Hundred | Kings-Sutton | |
Poor Law union | Brackley |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The register of baptisms and marriages dates from the year 1653; burials, 1664; and includes that of Warkworth.
Ancestry.co.uk, in association with the Northamptonshire Record Office, have images of the Parish Registers and Bishop's Transcripts for Northamptonshire online.
Churches
Church of England
St. Lawrence (parish church)
The church of St. Lawrence is an ancient edifice of stone, in mixed styles, consisting of chancel, clerestoried nave of four bays, aisles, north porch and an embattled western tower containing 5 bells and a clock: in the chancel are several monuments to the Blencowe family, a piscina and sedilia: the stained east window is a memorial to Mrs. Blencowe, mother of John Alexander Blencowe esq. a former vicar: the east end of the north aisle forms a chapel, partly inclosed by a carved oak screen, and retains a piscina, and the east and west windows are stained; there is also a stained window erected to commemorate the 60th year of the reign of Queen Victoria: in the south aisle is a curious aumbry: the font is octagonal and highly enriched: the church was thoroughly restored, in 1877-8, at a cost of £1,800, under the direction of Mr. B. Roumieu Gough, architect, of London, when the western gallery was removed and the lower portion of the tower converted into a vestry and separated from the nave by an ancient and richly-carved screen, dated 1610, and formerly serving as a reredos: a new north porch was also built, the chancel roofed anew with oak, and the interior completely refloored and retiled: there are 200 sittings. On the north side of the churchyard is a yew tree, with a trunk 10 feet in diameter.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Marston St Lawrence from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Marston (St. Lawrence))
- Kelly's Directory of Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Northamptonshire, 1914
Land and Property
The Manor House stands in extensive grounds; the dining room contains numerous family portraits and, with other rooms, some fine oak carving, partly of the same date as that in the church: the Blencowe family have been resident at Marston since the reign of Henry VI.
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Northamptonshire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Marston St Lawrence are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Northamptonshire papers online: