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How would they have got there?

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  • How would they have got there?

    Have been this afternoon to visit the church where my ggg grandparents were married in 1796. It is about 4 miles from where they lived and on the top of a very steep hill. I think she was pregnant. Does anyone have ideas of how they would have got there. Would they have walked?

    Pam
    Pam

  • #2
    They could have walked, or hired a cart, or ridden a donkey. Maybe the groom walked and the bride went on horseback. I guess it depends on whether they could afford to hire another form of transport or knew someone who would donate one as a wedding present/act of kindness.

    But four miles isn't that far - how pregnant would the bride have been?
    ~ with love from Little Nell~
    Chowns, Dunt, Emms, Mealing, Purvey & Smoothy

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    • #3
      Nell.

      They were married 16/5/1796, and their lst child was christened 25/12/1796
      The church they were married at was not the nearest, but they had their child christened at the nearest one..

      I thought how far it seemed to have walked.
      Pam

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      • #4
        If they were rich enough, maybe they went in carriages.
        KiteRunner

        Every five years or so I look back on my life and I have a good... laugh"
        (Indigo Girls, "Watershed")

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        • #5
          If there isn't any choice, you probably consider it only as much as is necessary for planning.
          A 19th C diary of a member of OH's family records walking all sorts of distances and making very little of it. They just set out earlier.

          Christine
          Researching: BENNETT (Leics/Birmingham-ish) - incl. Leonard BENNETT in Detroit & Florida ; WARR/WOR, STRATFORD & GARDNER/GARNAR (Oxon); CHRISTMAS, RUSSELL, PAFOOT/PAFFORD (Hants); BIGWOOD, HAYLER/HAILOR (Sussex); LANCASTER (Beds, Berks, Wilts) - plus - COCKS (Spitalfields, Liverpool, Plymouth); RUSE/ROWSE, TREMEER, WADLIN(G)/WADLETON (Devonport, E Cornwall); GOULD (S Devon); CHAPMAN, HALL/HOLE, HORN (N Devon); BARRON, SCANTLEBURY (Mevagissey)...

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          • #6
            Any one who remembers the old St. Michael's maternity hospital in Bristol knows it is perfectly possible to climb hills while pregnant. I got up St. Michael's hill while expecting twins. I think walking three or four miles was not uncommon before the invention of the car.
            Anne

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            • #7
              I agree. My Norfolk grandfather used to walk from Limpenhoe to Norwich, which is a lot more than 4 miles (admittedly its flat marshland rather than hills).

              My own journey to primary school was about a mile there, a mile back for lunch, a mile back and then a fourth mile home.

              People were more used to travelling "Shanks' pony" in those days.
              ~ with love from Little Nell~
              Chowns, Dunt, Emms, Mealing, Purvey & Smoothy

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              • #8
                One of my ancestors, old Ralph Holden, is remarked as having "regularly walked 25 miles to attend worship at a secret chapel on Pendle Hill".

                OK, he wasn't pregnant, but where there's a will, there's a way and I don't think country people would have considered a four mile walk anything out of the ordinary.

                (And your relative was only two month's pregnant, so not carrying any extra weight)

                OC

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                • #9
                  There is a story here that the wife of one of the early missionaries walked for several days to another mission station to have her baby as there was no white woman to help her at her home. This at a time when there were only bush tracks, no roads, and across some very rough country. Presumably she was near her delivery time too.

                  4 miles is nothing compared to this!
                  Christine
                  Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so.
                  Mary Jean Iron

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                  • #10
                    A book I read recently about the pre-Victorian era reckoned that if you look at a map and pick out market towns where many would do a little shopping or go to market or whatever, were spaced roughly so that no one would need to walk further than 10 miles each way (obviously many walked a lot less, but not many would have to walk much further than that).

                    I remember reading Parson Woodforde's diaries (he died in 1803) where he complained that his maid wanted a whole day off to attend her father's funeral. He thought that ridiculous as the funeral was "only" 9 miles away....So she had to walk 18 miles and also do half a day's work!!

                    My 3xg-grandfather walked 65 miles to London in 1780 because he owed someone some money.

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                    • #11
                      I still enjoy riding on a bus, because when I was a child in the 50s buses were a treat for when we were going somewhere special, we routinely walked every where. Four miles to a wedding wouldn't be a problem.

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                      • #12
                        And, of course, people are doing that in less-developed countries even now.

                        Christine
                        Researching: BENNETT (Leics/Birmingham-ish) - incl. Leonard BENNETT in Detroit & Florida ; WARR/WOR, STRATFORD & GARDNER/GARNAR (Oxon); CHRISTMAS, RUSSELL, PAFOOT/PAFFORD (Hants); BIGWOOD, HAYLER/HAILOR (Sussex); LANCASTER (Beds, Berks, Wilts) - plus - COCKS (Spitalfields, Liverpool, Plymouth); RUSE/ROWSE, TREMEER, WADLIN(G)/WADLETON (Devonport, E Cornwall); GOULD (S Devon); CHAPMAN, HALL/HOLE, HORN (N Devon); BARRON, SCANTLEBURY (Mevagissey)...

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                        • #13
                          A few years ago I climbed the Old Man of Coniston when I was 3 months pregnant. I'm not a very fit person, but managed this without any more difficulty than when I hadn't been pregnant earlier in the year.

                          Helen
                          Helen

                          http://www.familytreeforum.com/wiki/...enSmithToo-296

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                          • #14
                            As a child I regularly walked from my home in Hayes to the swimming pool in Heston about four & a half miles.
                            Vivienne passed away July 2013

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                            • #15
                              We don't have a car so walk a lot. I've just done 3 miles on foot to Sainsburys. Our ancestors probably had a wide social network that we have no knowledge of so it's quite likely that friends or relations would put someone up overnight, especially for a wedding.

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