Parish Markers - Marlborough Road, London, UK
N 51° 30.307 W 000° 08.243
30U E 698661 N 5709883
A couple of parish boundary markers located side-by-side on a wall.
Waymark Code: WMCTXC
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 10/12/2011
Views: 9
These plaques mark the division between St Martin in the Fields and St James's Westminster parishes.
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Before London had any kind of corporate government, and long before the London Borough had been devised as a convenient administrative unit, local services (such as they were) had to be provided by the existing historic bodies.
The parish already existed for spiritual purposes and had a form of 'management' in the form of its vestry and a mechanism for getting local people together, either in the church or in a nearby vestry hall. It was to the parish that local administrative responsibility was gradually given by Parliament. Even when new statutory bodies were set up to deal with lighting, policing, paving, sewerage and so on, the parish remained as the local unit capable of raising its local rate or tax. It was therefore important that people knew what parish they lived in and where the boundaries were. From this emerged the need for distinctive markers.
Over time, the civil and ecclesiastical duties of parishes diverged, and so far as markers are concerned we are referring to boundaries of parishes in their civil manifestation (many were subdivided for ecclesiastical purposes). Boundaries by no means corresponded with other boundaries in the area, for example the City of London boundary crossed through the middle of several parishes. Knowledge of where boundaries were and what they were for was vital.
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