Marton Church

If you travel out of Congleton on the A34 heading towards Manchester, after a couple of miles you will come to the small village of Marton, as you approach the village you will see on your right hand side a black and white half timbered church which is believed to be the oldest of its kind in Europe.

This church is said to have been built around the 14th century and it is also said to have been built upon a prehistoric burial mound which is about eight feet tall and roughly circular. Inside the church can be found an ancient hand made ladder, perhaps this was made from a local tree?

Also in this church can be found a very strange medieval painting which is known as a “Doom” and was discovered in the 1930s hidden under a false layer of plaster. The term “Doom” or last judgement is probably one of the more commonly painted scenes which can be found in parish churches, and does not refer to a foreboding disaster, but is refering to the wounds suffered by Christ during the crucifixion which can be seen in the paintings.

As I have stated the church is said to have been built upon a burial mound, and there is a theory that the winter solstice sunrise, rises in a notch in the hills to the right of the 1200ft high hill known as the Cloud and forms an alignment with the prehistoric site known as the Bridestones as well as the church.

Alignments can be found throughout the landscape which usually incorporate man made and natural features such as churches, burial mounds and standing stones etc. It has been speculated that these alignments were created to form the shortest way of travelling between two points, so pathways were thought to have existed between these places for ease of travel.