England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Burton St Nicholas

The Parish

The parish of Burton lies in northwestern Cheshire forming a stretch of its coastline with the Dee Estuary. Burton sits on the Wirral peninsula roughly 8 miles northwest of the city of Chester and about 2 miles southwest of the A540 road which links Chester through to Hoylake. Burton is amid-sized village with most properties lying along a curving lane which arcs around the sandstone knoll on which sits Burton Wood, it runs in from the A540 and then out towards Neston, to the south of that lane lies Burton Manor formerly built in the 19th century for the son of Prime Minister Gladstone but subsequently converted to a residential college. Burton sits on slightly higher ground above the extensive salt-marshes that line the Dee Estuary, this position gave it drier land for arable crops as well as pasture, a small colliery extending beneath the estuary also ran for some time and further extractive industries exploited the local red sandstone for local building. Today much of the salt-marsh is covered by military training areas with no general access to the public whilst other areas some of the village are nature reserves popular with wildfowl. Modern developments have come to the parish with a railway line linking Connah's Quay with Birkenhead passing to the west of the village without granting Burton a station. As a coastal settlement Burton is readily drained into the nearby Dee Estuary and thence to the Irish Sea. Burton is sited at between sea level and 70 metres above it, the knoll of Burton Wood occupying that higher ground, the highest for some distance. By Cheshire standards Burton parish was relatively small covering just over 1,300 acres and supporting a population of around 400 parishioners. Burton is not mentioned in Domesday Book.

The Church

St Nicholas' church sits on the lower slopes of Burton Wood knoll set back behind fronting properties to the north of the main village lane, The Village. Whilst this site held a church as early as the 12th century nothing remains of that early church, indeed very little remains of the medieval at all thanks to an extensive and almost complete rebuild of 1721, a most unusual time for major church building. Only the eastern end of the northern chapel remains from the medieval period and that given a tentative dating of c1300 and from the brief Transitional era between Early English Gothic and Decorated styles. Much of the remainder relates to the 1721 build including the twin naves separated by a 5-bay arcade and the western tower. Yet more modern work is from the Victorian restoration of 1870 at which time the chancel was rebuilt in a style which clashes slightly with that of the remainder. Parking on-street is available to the east of the blue signs marking the footpath leading between properties to the churchyard, once within there are few obstacles to restrict the photographer.