North Marston, Buckinghamshire
Historical Description
Marston, North, or Northmarston, a village and a parish in Bucks. The village stands 4 miles S of Win-slow station on the Oxford and Bletchley section of the L. & N.W.R., and 7 N of Aylesbury, and has a post and money order office under Winslow; telegraph office, Whitchurch. The parish comprises 1983 acres; population of the civil parish, 580; of the ecclesiastical, 658. A perennial spring, called Sir John Shorne's Well, is at the foot of the village; is fabled to have started into being by miraculous act of a sainted incumbent in the 13th century; and was, together with a costly shrine of the same person in the church, frequented for ages by so many pilgrims that the place became populous and flourishing. A recent analysis showed that the water contained much free carbonic acid and some mineral salts in minute quantities. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford; net value. £240 with residence. Patrons, the Dean and Canons of Windsor. The church stands on an eminence; is a building of stone, partly Decorated English and partly Later, with a tower; has a handsome E window and reredos, erected by Queen Victoria (who also restored the chancel at a cost of £3000) in memory of Mr J. C. Neild, who bequeathed to her his fortune of about £250,000, and died in 1852; and contains fine oak stalls, a piscina, three brasses of 1499,1602, and 1613, also one (1852) in memory of Neild with inscription and coat of arms, and a curious memorial of Mr John Virgin. There are Wesleyan. and Primitive Methodist chapels, and 26 acres of poor's and church lands. Scheme College, a high school for 100 boys, was founded in 1876 by the Rev S. B. James, D.D., vicar of the parish.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
Ancient County | Buckinghamshire | |
Ecclesiastical parish | North Marston St. Mary | |
Hundred | Ashendon | |
Poor Law union | Winslow |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The register of baptisms dates from the year 1639; burials from the year 1724, and marriages 1725.
Churches
Church of England
St. Mary (parish church)
The church of St. Mary, standing on an eminence, is an edifice of stone, consisting of chancel, clerestoried nave of three bays, aisles, south porch and an embattled western tower of the Decorated period containing a clock and 6 bells: the original style of the church seems to have been Early English, but the whole of the south side is Decorated, with a hagioscope, and a piscina and a triple sedilia in the south wall: the Perpendicular chancel, is said to have been built from the offerings of pilgrims who frequented the tomb or shrine of the famous rector, Sir John Schorne, and has misereres: above the vestry is a chamber said to have anciently been used by the priest whose duty it was to watch the shrine, for which purpose a rectangular opening was made through the north chancel wall; from this upper chamber a spiral stair gives access to the roof: on the north side of the chancel was buried John Virgin, vicar 1694, and above is a hand and inscription, indicating his grave: here also is a brass to Richard Sanders, 1602, and an inscription to the wife of John Sanders, 1615: the reredos and stained east window were erected by Queen Victoria in memory of John Campden Neild esq. who left Her Majesty his property, amounting to about £250,000: the chancel was also restored by Queen Victoria at a cost of £3,000: in the Diamond Jubilee year (1897) a new pulpit was erected: in 1913 a stained glass window was placed in the belfry by Mr. and Mrs. Francis Farnborough, who also the following year gave two candelabra for the sanctuary: on the north wall is a tablet recording the names of the men connected with this parish who fell in the Great War, 1914-18: the church was restored during 1920 and 1921. There are 250 sittings.
Civil Registration
North Marston was in Winslow Registration District from 1837 to 1935
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for North Marston from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Marston, North (St. Mary))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Buckinghamshire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of North Marston are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Buckinghamshire papers online:
Visitations Heraldic
A full transcript of the Visitation of Buckinghamshire, 1634 is online