of Earl Harold, and afterwards by William Malbank, Baron of Nantwich. The Domesday entry records 1½ hides at Marbury; jointly with Norbury and Wirswall, there was land for five ploughs and woodland measuring two leagues by a league and 40 perches. The total population of the joint demesne was recorded as seven. Unlike the adjacent townships of Wirswall and Wrenbury, Marbury is not described as "waste" in the survey. The name Marbury means "a fortified place near a lake"; besides the name, however, no evidence survives of a fortified settlement here. It was within the Hundred of Warmundestrou, later the Nantwich Hundred. The manor of Marbury was later owned by the de Praers family of Baddiley, passing to John le Strange, Lord of Whitchurch, before 1349. A timber church was in existence in 1299, on the site of the present parish church; Marbury church was considered a parochial chapel of Whitchurch until 1870. The remains of a medieval road were uncovered near Marbury Big Mere during sewerage works. They consist of a brushwood base covered by several layers of logs, with cobbles lying on top of the wood. Quoisley is first recorded in 1350 as Cuselegh; the name is Anglo-Saxon in origin and means "Cusa's clearing". It might represent a small medieval settlement which was later deserted. Tudor era and the Civil War In the 15th and 16th centuries, the manor was held by the Earl of Shrewsbury of Marley Hall, later passing to the Earl of Bridgewater. In June 1551, sixteen people in Marbury died in an epidemic of "sweating sickness", perhaps influenza, which also claimed the life of the mayor of Chester, Edmund Gee. By the 17th century, the Marbury family was a major local landowner. In the Civil War, Thomas Marbury declared for Parliament and raised troops which fought at the Parliamentarian stronghold of Nantwich in 1643–44. In common with much of the countryside surrounding Nantwich, Marbury was plundered by both sides between 1642 and 1644, with the Royalist commander Lord Capell quartering troops in the parish in 1643. Relative peace was restored after the decisive defeat of the Royalists in the Battle of Nantwich of 1644. Thomas Marbury was among several Cheshire Parliamentarians to be pardoned by Charles II in 1651. A charity school was founded in Marbury churchyard in 1688, and remained on that site until 1824. 18th century to the present day In 1758,