Photo by Gary Tacagni
If you travel out of the town of Congleton in the county of Cheshire, U.K. and head towards Manchester on the A34, 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 has been built upon the top of a prehistoric burial mound which is about eight feet tall and roughly circular.
Inside the church can be found a very old hand carved ladder, perhaps this has been carved from a local tree?Also inside the church can be found a very strange medieval painting which is known as a "Doom", this was discovered in the 1930s hidden under a false layer of plaster. The term "Doom", or last judgement is probably one of the more common painted scenes which can be found in parish churches, and does not refer to a foreboding or disaster, but is referring to the wounds suffered by Christ during the Crucifixtion which can be seen in the paintings.
As I have said the church is said to have been built on 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 locally as the "Cloud" which 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 e.t.c. 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 points for ease of travel.
The Medieval Doom in Marton Church.
Photo by Gary Tacagni.
