Moreton-in-Marsh History
Moreton-in-Marsh is at the head of the beautiful
Evenlode Valley, between the Cotswolds and the Oxfordshire hills, immediately
south of the watershed between the Severn and the Thames. The countryside
reflects the fact that it was the southernmost advance of the ice sheets in the
last Ice Age.
The earliest evidence of the settlement in Moreton is
opposite the Batsford Road entrance to the cricket ground. Two sides of a
rectangular bank and ditch, each 20ft across, mark an early Roman military camp
covering half an acre, which was built in 43-50 AD during the conquest of
Britain to ensure the submission of the local population while the Romans
established their permanent bases. It predates the Roman Fosseway, which lies
some 3ft below the the present High Street, and was succeeded by a walled town
at Dorn, a mile north of Moreton, which served as a tax collection centre in
the 1st-4th centuries AD, and a larger Romano-British settlement on the
southern boundary of the parish near Stow bridge.
This is an ancient
area. The Four Shire Stone and its predecessors have marked the place of local
boundaries for 12 centuries. Moreton itself is Saxon in origin, and is over
1,000 years old. It was given in the 9th century to Deerhurst monastery near
Tewkesbury, seized by Mercia, and came into the hands of King Edward the
Confessor, who included it in his endowment of his new Westminster Abbey in
1065. It remained one of the Abbey's most westerly possessions until the mid
19th century. Moreton means "moorland settlement". The much misunderstood 'in
Marsh' was originally 'Henmarsh', meaning boggy land where wild birds were to
be had. This was added to many local place names from the 13th to the 17th
century, when improved drainage gradually cleared the area and the district
name disappeared.
Moreton originally developed round the church in the
part still known as 'Old Town'. But in the 1220's the Abbot of Westminster
built the new Moreton with its wide street along the Fosseway as a market town,
for which its position at the crossroads of the Fosseway and the
London-Worcester road made it very suitable. Although Moreton continued to rely
on arable and sheep farming, this started its tradition as a convenient
stopping place for travellers.
King Charles I granted a charter for
the market in 1637, which is still exercised every Tuesday, when the High
Street is thronged with market stalls and shoppers from all over the Midlands.
In the Civil War Moreton was a centre for the Royalist cavalry and King Charles
stayed at the White Hart Royal on his final march from his Oxford
headquarters.
The foundation of a linen-weaving industry and the
turnpiking of the main roads in the mid 18th century increased the town's
importance, and many of the buildings in the High Street date from this time,
although the earliest building is the 16th century Curfew Tower. The Redesdale
Arms and the White Hart Royal were much used for the eight London-Worcester
stage-coaches which stopped here every day. Moreton had one of the earliest
railways in the country when the Stratford-Moreton Tramway opened in 1826. The
main line between London, Oxford and Worcester followed in 1853.
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