This arises from the circumstance that, in time past, when Nottingham rather than London was the fashionable resort of the local gentry, many of their town residences were situated in St. Mary's parish, so that we find in its registers an unusually large number of weddings of notable Nottinghamshire families. Moreover, the central position of the town, and the size of St. Mary's parish, rendered that church a peculiarly suitable one for the solemnization of clandestine weddings, a large number of which both before and after Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act of 1753, took place there. The registers are, therefore, of more than local interest. There are, it is estimated, about twenty thousand weddings recorded in St. Mary's register, between its commencement and the year 1813, when Rose's Act came into force.
