Marbury is a small village in Cheshire East, Cheshire, England. It is the main village in the civil parish of Marbury and District, which also contains the settlements of Norbury, Quoisley and Wirswall. Marbury village lies around north-east of Whitchurch in Shropshire and south-west of Nantwich in Cheshire.
The area is agricultural with undulating terrain. Dairy farming is the main industry. The Llangollen Canal runs through the parish, to the north of Marbury village. There are five meres which are important wildlife habitats. Marbury Big Mere is a fishing lake and the Quoisley Meres are a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Wetland of International Importance; they originate in glacial kettle holes. Marbury contains many historic buildings, the earliest being the 15th-century St Michael's Church. "Marbury Merry Days", a traditional country fair, is held in May. In the Civil War, the parish was plundered by both sides during 1642–44, after Thomas Marbury declared for Parliament.
History
Early history Little is known of the history of Marbury before the Norman Conquest. A middle Bronze Age palstave, a type of axe, was found at Bank Farm, near Marbury village; it dates from around 1000–1200 BC. The axe is moulded in two parts, and both faces have a trident design.Local History Group & Latham (ed.), p. 13Revealing Cheshire's Past: Bronze Age Find from Marbury cum Quoisley (accessed 19 May 2010) Roman coins have been found in the area, but there is no evidence of Roman settlement.Local History Group & Latham (ed.), p. 15Revealing Cheshire's Past: Roman Finds from Marbury cum Quoisley Parish (accessed 19 May 2010) Parts of two skulls, that of an adult and a child, were recovered from Marbury Big Mere; they have been dated to around 750 AD.Local History Group & Latham (ed.), pp. 61–62Revealing Cheshire's Past: Partial Saxon Skulls found in Marbury Mere (accessed 19 May 2010) A fragment of an unglazed cooking pot considered to be of late Saxon date has also been found in the parish.Local History Group & Latham (ed.), p. 17Revealing Cheshire's Past: Saxon Pottery from Marbury cum Quoisley Parish (accessed 19 May 2010)
Marbury was recorded in the Domesday survey of 1086 as Merberie, jointly with the adjacent townships of Norbury and Wirswall. Before the Conquest, it was held as an outlying estate of Earl Harold, and afterwards by William Malbank, Baron of Nantwich. The Domesday entry records 1½ hides at Marbury; jointly with Norbury and Wirswall, there was land for five ploughs and woodland measuring two leagues by a league and 40 perches. The total population of the joint demesne was recorded as seven. Unlike the adjacent townships of Wirswall and Wrenbury, Marbury is not described as "waste" in the survey. The name Marbury means "a fortified place near a lake"; besides the name, however, no evidence survives of a fortified settlement here. It was within the Hundred of Warmundestrou, later the Nantwich Hundred.Local History Group & Latham (ed.), p. 9
The manor of Marbury was later owned by the de Praers family of Baddiley, passing to John le Strange, Lord of Whitchurch, before 1349.Local History Group & Latham (ed.), p. 25 A timber church was in existence in 1299, on the site of the present parish church; Marbury church was considered a parochial chapel of Whitchurch until 1870.Local History Group & Latham (ed.), pp. 29, 71 The remains of a medieval road were uncovered near Marbury Big Mere during sewerage works. They consist of a brushwood base covered by several layers of logs, with cobbles lying on top of the wood.Local History Group & Latham (ed.), p. 115Revealing Cheshire's Past: Timber Road near Marbury Mere & Timber Road near Marbury Mere (accessed 19 May 2010)
Quoisley is first recorded in 1350 as Cuselegh; the name is Anglo-Saxon in origin and means "Cusa's clearing".Local History Group & Latham (ed.), pp. 18–21 It might represent a small medieval settlement which was later deserted.Revealing Cheshire's Past: Quoisley (accessed 19 May 2010)
Tudor era and the Civil War
In the 15th and 16th centuries, the manor was held by the Earl of Shrewsbury of Marley Hall, later passing to the Earl of Bridgewater.Local History Group & Latham (ed.), p. 43Local History Group & Latham (ed.), pp. 121–122Local History Group & Latham (ed.), p. 124 In June 1551, sixteen people in Marbury died in an epidemic of "sweating sickness", perhaps influenza, which also claimed the life of the mayor of Chester, Edmund Gee.Beck J. Tudor Cheshire. A History of Cheshire, Vol. 7 (JJ Bagley, ed.), pp. 34, 73 (Cheshire Community Council; 1969) ()Local History Group & Latham (ed.), pp. 29–30
By the 17th century, the Marbury family was a major local landowner.Local History Group & Latham (ed.), p. 32 In the Civil War, Thomas Marbury declared for Parliament and raised troops which fought at the Parliamentarian stronghold of Nantwich in 1643–44. In common with much of the countryside surrounding Nantwich, Marbury was plundered by both sides between 1642 and 1644, with the Royalist commander Lord Capell quartering troops in the parish in 1643. Relative peace was restored after the decisive defeat of the Royalists in the Battle of Nantwich of 1644.Local History Group & Latham (ed.), pp. 34, 36–38Dore, pp. 26, 60 Thomas Marbury was among several Cheshire Parliamentarians to be pardoned by Charles II in 1651.Dore, p. 75
A charity school was founded in Marbury churchyard in 1688, and remained on that site until 1824.
18th century to the present day In 1758, the manor of Marbury was purchased by the Knight family, who still held it in 1810. The Poole family gained in influence during the 18th century, and were regarded as the local squires throughout the 19th century until the end of the Second World War.Local History Group & Latham (ed.), pp. 51–52 The Pooles inhabited the Jacobean Marbury Old Hall at Tapley's Craft by the church, building the present Marbury Hall in around 1805–10. The Old Hall was unoccupied and partly ruined by 1888, and has now been demolished.Local History Group & Latham (ed.), p. 79 Cudworth Halstead Poole served as the High Sheriff of the county in 1880.Local History Group & Latham (ed.), p. 48
In the 1760s, there were two public houses, The Leathern Bottle and The Swan, as well as two licensed sellers of ale. The Leathern Bottle had closed by the end of the 19th century, while The Swan was rebuilt in around 1884 by Cudworth Halstead Poole, and remains open as of 2024.Local History Group & Latham (ed.), p. 98 Cudworth Halstead Poole also rebuilt Bank Farm, Marley Lodge and several other buildings in the village. The school had moved to Wrenbury Road in 1825, and a new school opened on School Lane in 1871 on land donated by the Poole family.
Historian George Ormerod described the village in around 1816 as "a cluster of farm-houses, occupying rising ground between two small meres or lakes, from which the township derives its name." Throughout the 19th century, cheesemaking was an important source of income, as in much of South Cheshire. The completion of the Ellesmere Canal early in the 19th century and the Crewe and Shrewsbury Railway in 1858 improved transport for local produce, particularly cheese and milk, to cities including London and Liverpool.Local History Group & Latham (ed.), pp. 75–76, 115–117 In 1850, nearly all local tradespeople were involved with agriculture, whether directly or indirectly. At that date, Marbury had two blacksmiths, butchers and shoemakers, and a wheelwright; later there was also a smithy, coal merchant, tailor, bakehouse and one or more grocer's shops.Local History Group & Latham (ed.), pp. 83, 87 In the early 20th century, the great majority of the population was still employed in agriculture; one contemporary observer mentioned common occupations as "farm workers, milkmaids and washer women". Cheesemaking had ceased by 1951.Local History Group & Latham (ed.), p. 59
Several descriptions of Marbury village and the surrounding countryside survive from the first half of the 20th century. Ornithologist T. A. Coward wrote around 1900: "What a country this is, wooded hills, none of them high, lanes bordered with luxuriant vegetation that tempts one to potter and smell the honeysuckle or pick the wild roses; meres or pools in almost every hollow." Almost 50 years later, little had changed; local author Beatrice Tunstall described the village in 1948 as "far from the madding crowd", and praised the "ancient lanes, deep trodden by the feet of endless generation, flower fringed amid the woodlands, with great hedges where honeysuckle and wild roses riot."Local History Group & Latham (ed.), p. 10
A total of 86 men from Marbury served in the First World War; Belgian refugees supplied some of the resulting deficit in agricultural labour. The interwar years saw many services being provided in the area for the first time. A telephone exchange was built in 1927, electricity was connected some time after 1930, and the first bus service started in 1934. In 1929, a village hall was built by the Poole family.Local History Group & Latham (ed.), pp. 56–58 The earliest piped water supply was installed at Marbury in around 1930; previously, village pumps on the green were used. During the Second World War, evacuees were housed at Marbury Hall. Marbury was one of the observation posts of the Home Guard, but no bombs are recorded as having fallen within the civil parish.
The Poole estate was sold in 1946. Marbury Hall was acquired by the Grant family, later the Paton-Smiths; Carolin Paton-Smith served as Cheshire's High Sheriff in 2005.Appointment of Sheriffs. London Gazette, p. 3762 (29 March 2005) (accessed 19 May 2010) Part of the remainder of the estate, including Marbury Little Mere and several farms, passed to the Duchy of Lancaster. Fourteen council houses and a few private houses were built in Marbury village after the Second World War, and in the early 21st century, residential conversion of farm buildings at Marbury Hall Farm created twelve dwellings.Cheshire East: Planning Applications submitted to the former Crewe and Nantwich Borough Council: Marbury Hall Farm, Marbury Hall, Marbury, Whitchurch, Cheshire, SY13 4LP (P03/1419) (accessed 20 May 2010)Christian James Developments Ltd: Marbury Hall Farm Barns (accessed 20 May 2010) Marbury School was extended in 1965, but closed in 1988 due to low enrolment. The second half of the 20th century also saw the loss of many local businesses, with the smithy being demolished in 1979, and the last remaining village shop closing before 1999. The canal ceased being used for commercial traffic after the Second World War, but in the late 20th century became popular for recreation.
Governance There are two tiers of local government covering Marbury, at parish and unitary authority level: Marbury and District Parish Council and Cheshire East Council. The parish council meets at the village hall on School Lane in Marbury.
Administrative history Marbury was an ancient parish in the Nantwich hundred of Cheshire. The parish was subdivided into two townships, called Marbury cum Quoisley and Norbury. From the 17th century onwards, parishes were gradually given various civil functions under the poor laws, in addition to their original ecclesiastical functions. In some cases, including Marbury, the civil functions were exercised by each township separately rather than the parish as a whole. In 1866, the legal definition of 'parish' was changed to be the areas used for administering the poor laws, and so Marbury cum Quoisley and Norbury became separate civil parishes.