The Hunt For The Medieval Hall in Marton
Marton Manor is an on-going search project for the History Group.
The location is well known: next to the old church, in the field known as Hall Garth.
The existance of the remains of the Manor was noted in the late 18th century, illustrating that the Manor or Hall had all but vanished by then.
It is logical (and usual) that the Lord of the Manor would have built and funded the Church: given that the church is likely Late Saxon to early Norman in date it therefore follows that the first iteration of the manor is of a similar date.
The style of the building will follow on the traditional stone based, timber framed lines, and may look something like the following:
There is some evidence around the building that parts of the Hall (particularly the timbers) have been reused: a good example of this can be sen in Ivy House, only 500 yards from the Hall, where several doorframes are of a far higher quality of finish than one could expect in a house of that type, and these timbers also display signs of burning.
Since Ivy House dates from 1620 - 1640 is it possible that this is witness to the end of Marton Hall: a fire and then a victim to building projects around the village over the succeeding years?
The Field Walking Project
In 2007 a number of local voulnteers, with the kind permission of the owner, field walked Hall Garth.
The objective was to both identify the type and period of the building and to narrow down possible locations.
The project was hugely successful, revealing an unexpectedly huge collection of Pottery and other finds which are now awaiting dating.
Once dated these finds will allow us to extrapolate far more detail about this exciting site, and narrow down the areas for future investigation.
The photograph abouve shows some of the finds awaiting cleaning and labelling before being passed on to experts for dating and interpretation.
During 2006 the author carried out an examination of the North Wall of the churchyard at its older (Western) end.
During this investigation the pictured stone was found.
In addition it is considered that the wall section in questiion is far too crude and thick to be a churchyard retaining wall.
It has long been an anecdotal tradtion that the church could not be extended in this direction because of the proximity of the Hall.
Could this wall be part of the myserious Marton Hall building complex?
Could the recovered shaped stone be the first part of the Hall to be recognised since the 1600's? It should be noted that the stone is in no way similar to the parts of the old church preserved in the vestry of Lunns new building.......
