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Marston Magna (St. Mary)

MARSTON MAGNA (St. Mary), a parish, in the union of Sherborne, hundred of Horethorne, E. division of Somerset, 5¼ miles (N. N. E.) from Yeovil; containing 357 inhabitants. The living is a discharged vicarage, endowed with the rectorial tithes, valued in the king's books at £6. 10. 10., and in the gift of Mrs. Fitzherbert: the tithes have been commuted for £300, and the glebe comprises 87 acres. The church is a neat stone structure, with a strong embattled tower crowned by pinnacles. Sir John St. Barbe, in 1736, gave to the vicar the rectory, parsonage-house, and some lands, on condition that he should educate, or cause to be educated, ten poor boys. On opening a pit in 1788, near the margin of a brook, some fine specimens of a calcareous blue stone, almost filled with cornua ammonis, overspread with white pearl, were discovered, and raised in masses sufficiently large to form slabs which took a beautiful polish. In the same field, irregular heaps of mundic, with large metalliferous cornua ammonis, were found; and the quarries on the hills, from one of which the brook takes its rise, abound in ammonites, nautili, belemnites, &c.

Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.

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