Marksbury | |
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St Peter's Church, Marksbury |
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Marksbury shown within Somerset | |
Population | 397 (2011) |
OS grid reference | ST666623 |
Unitary authority | |
Shire county | |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | BATH |
Postcode district | BA2 |
Dialling code | 01761 |
Police | Avon and Somerset |
Fire | Devon and Somerset |
Ambulance | South Western |
EU Parliament | South West England |
UK Parliament | |
Marksbury is a small village and civil parish in Somerset about 4 miles (6.4 km) from Keynsham and 7 miles (11.3 km) from Bath on the A39 where it meets the A368. The parish, which includes the villages of Hunstrete and Stanton Prior, has a population of 397.
Stantonbury Camp is the site of an Iron Age hillfort near Stanton Prior. It is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. The hillfort, which is at the top of an isolated outcrop of Oolitic Limestone, close to the A39 road is on the route of the Wansdyke.
In 926 Æthelstan gave the manor, then spelled Merkesburie, to his son. It was later gifted to Glastonbury Abbey and in one of the Danelaw wars was taken by Danish troops. It was restored to the abbey again after the victory of Edgar the Peaceful.
Marksbury was listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Mercesberia. The name of the village is thought to come from Old English either as ‘Mǣrec’s or Mearc’s stronghold’ (from an Old English male personal name + burh ‘stronghold’, ‘fortified place’, dative byrig), or as ‘stronghold on a boundary’ (from mearc ‘boundary’, possibly a reference to the Wansdyke, + burh, byrig).
The parish of Marksbury was part of the Keynsham Hundred,