Marston Moreteyne (or Marston Moretaine) is a large English village and civil parish located on the A421 between Bedford and Milton Keynes in the county of Bedfordshire. The population was 4,560 at the 2001 census, and 4,556 at the 2011 census. The village is served by Millbrook railway station, approximately a mile away on the Marston Vale Line.
The place-name 'Marston Moretaine' is first attested in an Anglo-Saxon charter of 969, where it appears as Mercstuninga. It appears as Merestone in the Domesday Book of 1086. The name derives from the Old English mersc-tun meaning 'town or settlement by a marsh'. It was held by the family of Moretaine, from Mortain in Normandy in France. Local roadsigns use either the "Moreteyne" and "Moretaine" spellings inconsistently.
Sir Thomas Snagge lived in the village in the 16th century. He owned the manor of Marston Moreteyne.
Dating from around 1340, the church of St Mary the Virgin is a 14th-century church with a very rare feature for the East of England, a Grade I listed detached tower to the north of the church located about 70 feet from the north wall of the chancel. Grade I listing denotes that the building is of outstanding or national architectural or historic interest.
Though building began c. 1340 the church was more or less rebuilt in 1445. The interior of the nave is very grand. The screen has paintings.
According to legend, the church's detached tower is the work of the Devil, who was trying to steal it. Finding it too heavy, he dropped it where it still remains.
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