A brief history of North Marston

Note that this article is annotated with images, which can be viewed by clicking on the underlined links.

The parish of North Marston spans nearly 2,000 acres and has a population of about 800. It sits in a bowl of limestone hills giving it a relatively sheltered climate.

The village has a Saxon name (“Marston” derives from “Maer Stun” in the Mercian dialect and means boundary stone). It survived the ravages of the Black Death in the mid 1300s with the income from pilgrims visiting the Holy Well and shrine of John Schorne, the rector here from 1282 until 1314. Pilgrimages to North Marston were the third most popular in the country: Henry VIII visited here twice. In today’s terms, the income to the church in this period exceeded £2.5m per year!

The village suffered a major fire in 1705: it is still possible to track its course by looking at the buildings that were re-built, either partially or totally.

For centuries solely an agricultural economy, the nineteenth century saw it diversify and also witnessed a boom in house-building thanks to two 19th century innovations: the railway and the telegraph. The first enabled the import of bricks and slate, the materials for the building boom of the late 19th century. The second broadened access to markets beyond the village creating the prosperity that funded the building boom.

In the middle of the 19th century a very wealthy local landowner, John Camden Neild, died and left his entire fortune to Queen Victoria. In gratitude the Queen commissioned the East Window in the church and the refurbishment of the chancel. With the remainder of the bequest she bought Balmoral Castle.

Our knowledge of the village in the late Victorian years owes much to the vicar at the time, the Rev Samuel James, who founded a private school here (Schorne College) and was the editor of a village chronicle that charted in detail village life from about 1875 to 1910.

The village suffered heavily in the Great War of 1914-18. Its losses totalled more than those of Oving and Whitchurch combined, a whole generation were never to return. The Memorial Hall was built to commemorate these losses, paid for by public subscription.

As transport to and from the village improved, village residents found employment outside the village (which until the 1930s had been largely self-sufficient). Mains water and electricity arrived before the second world war and after the war, a more modern village began to emerge, although with the gradual loss of many local resources: the number of village pubs diminished to one, shops to one, places of worship to one.

Although the land surrounding the settlement of North Marston remains agricultural, the 14 dairy farms that once were here have given way to residential development or equestrian and sheep grazing, with seasonal beef rearing to supplement income to the farms. Barely a handful of village residents now work in the village or its locality, and it is primarily the efforts of North Marston History Club that keeps alive the spirit of the village as it was by “giving the past a safe future”. You can find out more details about the History Club here.