Wedding gift lists 1930s

[Viktoria]

I wonder if the” marriages “known as “ living over the brush “ were recorded at all.
In the 1800’s when gangs of“ Navvies” -men who dug the canals  etc and moved around the country  - met local girls who perhaps worked at the sites ,washing ,cooking etc,and wanted to live together went through a form of marriage on site and to seal their vows jumped over a sweeping brush together.?
The term ended up meaning any couple who lived together without the “benefit of clergy” .

Viktoria.

[coombs]

I believe my ancestors George and Sarah Coombs may never have tied the knot. They "wed" about 1810-1812 if they had married. I think I can rule out the Axminster, Devon marriage in 1810 as Sarah Davey signed the register, and her handwriting is significantly different to my Sarah when she witnessed her elder sons marriage later on. And the 1810 woman was a widow, and my Sarah was born about 1790 so only about 19 in 1810. Not impossible but unlikely. The signatures make me think it is a different George Coombs to Sarah. My Sarah had her last child before civil reg and in the 1841 census in Marylebone she said "not born in county" and died just before the 1851 census.

My George Coombs died in 1831, and Sarah had her banns read for a remarriage in Marylebone in 1834. No marriage has ever been found but they remained together.

Maybe Sarah was not the marrying type, or was allergic to wedding cake.