I hope this is the correct area for this query.......

Our Great-great-grandparents, Thomas Mountford and Eliza Mayers were married in St Mary Church January 24, 1852. The certified copy of their Marriage Certificate we have says Speenhamland, but the family Bible says St Mary, Ashmore, Thatcham.

In 1852 was there a St Mary at Ashmore? Is the St Nicholas Newbury and St Mary Speenhamland, Newbury likely to be the church referred to on the certified copy?

Any help will be most appreciated. We live in Australia so we aren't able to chase up this query ourselves.
:)

I am sure that the church in question would be St Mary's at Speenhamland as indicated on the marriage certificate.

The only local reference that I can find to St Mary in the Cold Ash/Ashmore Green area is St Mary's Home which was founded as a girls orphanage in the late 1800's. The local church for this area is St Mark's.

St Nicolas is in Newbury Town Centre.

Thank you, we thought this also from research, but thought it best to double check.
Is this the correct area to ask this type of question.  And would this forum be correct
to ask some other pertinent questions regarding family history research? i.e. place names, etc
not necessarily research lookups etc?

We have several knowledgeable people who contribute to this forum. I am sure that we would be able to help you with place names.

St Mary's, Speenhamland was demolished ca1970.  It stood on the corner of London Road and St Mary's Road. There are flats and a doctor's surgery on the site today.

I don't think Ashmore Green has ever had a church (C of E) though I think there was a Baptist chapel.  Ashmore Green was part of the civil parish of Thatcham until the new parish of Cold Ash was formed in 1894. The church of St Mark's, Cold Ash was built in the 1860s to serve the area.  As someone has already mentioned the only obvious St Mary's associated with Cold Ash is the children's home.  Before St Mark's was built it was probably as (or more) convenient for someone from Ashmore Green to go to church in Speenhamland rather than Thatcham.

Speenhamland is close to Newbury town Centre.
The location for where St Mary's Speenhamland stood is at the junction of St Mary's Rd and London Rd. This picture of the old demolished church may be helpful.
The tall houses you see to the right are still there however.

Quoted from Ros

Thank you, we thought this also from research, but thought it best to double check.
Is this the correct area to ask this type of question.  And would this forum be correct
to ask some other pertinent questions regarding family history research? i.e. place names, etc
not necessarily research lookups etc?

There is a section on the forum which might be a better place for your historical questions where there is already a large quantity of old pictures and memories. "The Newbury of Yesteryear" . "Memories" and "Old Photographs".
{Addendum.. Looks like admin has already moved you over}
Welcome to a Virtual Newbury anyway and only believe half of what you read on here, moaning (whinging pommies) is what we like to do most.

Thank you for your replies.  My sister has also asked is Speen and Speenhamland different places.

Hi Brian, thanks for your reply.    Wingeing pommies.......sounds like an Aussie talking.
We can do our fair share of wingeing too.  

and Blackdog, thank you for the history of the area.  We visited Thatcham and surrounds in 2007
and had a great time finding different places, but had not really looked at our records because we
believed what had been written in the family Bible and so  did our research in Thatcham area, mostly
following the Mountford connection.   We are now looking at the Mayers connections and finding some of these differences in records.

We have a record of Stone Copse which we could not find and believe that any housing may have gone long ago.   Is there any details anywhere else that we could find regarding this area.

Once again thank you all for your input.

Quoted from Ros

We have a record of Stone Copse which we could not find and believe that any housing may have gone long ago.   Is there any details anywhere else that we could find regarding this area.

The Berkshire Record Office have sale particulars dated 1933 of a house called Stone Copse, Stoney Lane, Ashmore Green.

According to Royal Mail records, there is no house called Stone Copse in Stoney Lane, but there is a house called the Copse at RG18 9HQ

This is the image of RG18 9HQ taken from Multimap. I think this will throw more light on your quest:

Yes, this looks like a place we went to but could find no one at the house too ask details,  perhaps I will
contact the BRO and try and obtain particulars of the sale you mentioned.  

We also called in to a farm called [not necessarily correct] Mouse Paddock Farm [maybe similar] and we
have had this referred to in some letters that were sent to our GGG-parents back in the 1870's.

From your knowledge, would this farm have employed people who lived elsewhere, or would the workers have lived on the farms in small cottages/houses?   Not sure about this way of life, hence the question.

Anyway the gentleman we spoke to at "the farm" was quite nice and sent us over the roadway to  his parents who
once farmed the land but they couldn't shed too much light on the sbject of previous workers, etc only that the farm had been in the family for hundreds of years.   I do not recall their names though.

Quoted from Ros

Thank you for your replies.  My sister has also asked is Speen and Speenhamland different places.

The answer is yes - and no.  

Speenhamland is an area within the historic parish of Speen - part of Speen but not the same as Speen.  Speen is the parish that lay on the northern boundary of Newbury. Speenhamland is/was a tithing or hamlet of Speen and was a manorial holding in its own right by the later middle ages.  It was the most economically successful part of Speen, taking advantage of its position on the main London to Bristol/Bath road where it met the north/south route between the Midlands/Oxford and Winchester/Southampton.

Newbury started south of the River Kennet but grew north along the north/south road and soon met Speenhamland. By Tudor times Speenhamland was part of the town of Newbury but not the Borough of Newbury.  In 1878 the Borough boundaries were expanded to incorporate Speenhamland and other parts of Speen and Greenham.

I assume Ros that you live in South Australia. I see that the Mountford's emigrated to Australia between 1854 and 1857. Certainly a prolific family with nine children.
Do you think that he was lured by the prospect of gold as the 1850s were Gold Rush days

I spent three years in Australia attatched to the 4th Submarine squadron based in Sydney. Loved every minute of it and sorry to have to come home. Didn't find any gold though.

My sister is a great one for family geneaology and tells me it can become a very time consuming hobby so watch out.

Addendum...
Forget the gold, I'd be willing to bet that your ancestor worked the land in England as Gawler South Australia, where he and his wife settled was a new developing agricultural community in those days so they must have been among the first in that area. What life and times he would have been able to tell.

Hi Brian,
Yes I am in Adelaide.   For us its quite cold - at  the moment 4.5C but sun shining today - we have never had snow here altho in the hills to the east  have sometimes had very small falls.

Yes the Mountfords came here in 1856 - but cannot find they went gold prospecting.  You are correct in saying they were farmers, although for the first years they were Brickmakers at Gawler and further north then purchased land, unfortunately in the dry north and that soon failed - too many drought years.

Family history is addictive, altho more healthy than some other addictions.  Probably just as expensive tho.
Still as someone else on this list said we have to spend the inheritance somehow and we do get to see a lot of the world.

I am amazed you found out about the family in the Gawler area, but as I said Bricklayers not farmers.

Thanks for your interest.
Ros