page_title: Marbury, Cheshire
section_title: Early history
hierarchical_section_title: Marbury, Cheshire / History / Early history
caption_attribution_description: English: thumb|St Michael’s &amp; All Angels Church (front view)
context_page_description: Marbury is a small village located at SJ560457 in the civil parish of Marbury cum Quoisley, within the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. It is administered jointly with the adjacent civil parishes of Norbury and Wirswall. The village lies around 3 miles north east of Whitchurch in Shropshire and 7 miles south west of Nantwich in Cheshire. Nearby villages include Malpas, No Man's Heath, Norbury, Wirswall and Wrenbury. The civil parish borders Shropshire and covers 2,168 acres; it also contains the small settlements of Hollins Lane, Marley Green and Quoisley, as well as parts of Hollyhurst and Willeymoor. The total population was just under 250 in 2001, and – combined with Wirswall – 352 in 2011.
  The area is agricultural with undulating terrain, 75–120 metres in elevation. Dairy farming is the main industry. A small area in the east of the civil parish is part of the Combermere estate. The Llangollen Canal runs along the northern boundary. There are five meres which are important wildlife habitats.
context_section_description: Little is known of the history of Marbury cum Quoisley 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. Roman coins have been found in the area, but there is no evidence of Roman settlement. 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. A fragment of an unglazed cooking pot considered to be of late Saxon date has also been found in the civil parish.
  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.
  The manor of Marbury was later owned by the de Praers family of Baddiley, passing to John le Strange, Lord of Whitchurch, before 1349. 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. 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.
  Quoisley is first recorded in 1350 as Cuselegh; the name is Anglo-Saxon in origin and means "Cusa's clearing". It might represent a small medieval settlement which was later deserted.
caption: The 15th-century St Michael's stands on the site of an earlier church
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