Long Marston is a planned new town under development, formerly village, and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

about southwest of

Stratford-upon-Avon Stratford-upon-Avon ( ), commonly known as Stratford, is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon (district), Stratford-on-Avon district, in the county of Warwickshire, in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands region of Engl ...

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Staffordshire and Leicestershire to the north, Northamptonshire to the east, Ox ...

, England. The southern and western boundaries of the

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

form part of the county boundary with

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Shropshire, Staffordshire, and the West Midlands (county), West ...

. Historically, the town was in

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( , ; abbreviated Glos.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Herefordshire to the north-west, Worcestershire to the north, Warwickshire to the north-east, Oxfordshire ...

. The 2021 census recorded the parish's population as 1,630. Talk of expanding Long Marston dates back to May 2007, when

Gordon Brown James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. Previously, he was Chancellor of the Ex ...

announced that it was one potential site for an eco-town, which would have seen it be renamed Middle Quinton. Though the Middle Quinton plan was ultimately scrapped in 2010, in a January 2017 announcement the idea was revived when Long Marston was targeted for expansion by the government a second time. This time, it was classified as a garden village and has held the title since, a designation for new towns drawing inspiration from Ebenezer Howard's

garden city movement The garden city movement was a 20th century urban planning movement promoting satellite communities surrounding the central city and separated with Green belt, greenbelts. These Garden Cities would contain proportionate areas of residences, i ...

. The garden villages have been described as intended to be "modern market towns with a focus on mixed use". The first residents moved into ''Fernleigh Park'', Long Marston's first newbuild housing development as part of the garden village project, in early 2022. In 2025, Long Marston was also labelled one of several "potential New Settlement" locations by Warwickshire County Council, which would see even more homes built if approved.

History

Long Marston was part of Gloucestershire until 1931, when the Provisional Order Confirmation (Gloucestershire,

and

) Act moved Marston Sicca Rural District into Warwickshire. The civil parish was also renamed from Marston Sicca to Long Marston in 1931. It is recorded in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

"In Celfledetorn Hundred, St Mary's Priory and Cathedral in Merestone, holds 10 hides. In lordship 3 ploughs; 15 villagers and 3 smallholders with 12 ploughs. 6 slaves; meadow at 10s. The value was £8; now 100s. The name of the

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numerals, Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 (number), 99 and preceding 101 (number), 101. In mathematics 100 is the square of 10 (number), 10 (in scientific notation it is written as 102). The standar ...

, ''Celfledethon'' means Ceolflaed's thorn, perhaps indicating that the original meeting place in the centre of the hundred was a thorn tree. Long Marston is known as one of the "Shakespeare villages".

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

is said to have joined a party of Stratford folk which set itself to outdrink a drinking club at

Bidford-on-Avon Bidford-on-Avon is a large village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the England, English county of Warwickshire, very close to the border with Worcestershire. In the United Kingdom Census 2001, 2001 census it had a population of 4 ...

, and as a result of his labours in that regard to have fallen asleep under the

crab Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura (meaning "short tailed" in Greek language, Greek), which typically have a very short projecting tail-like abdomen#Arthropoda, abdomen, usually hidden entirely under the Thorax (arthropo ...

tree of which a descendant is still called Shakespeare's tree. When morning dawned his friends wished to renew the encounter but he wisely said "No I have drunk with Piping Pebworth, Dancing Marston, Haunted Hillboro', Hungry Grafton, Dodging Exhall, Papist Wixford, Beggarly Broom and Drunken Bidford' and so, presumably, I will drink no more." The story is said to date from the 17th century but of its truth or of any connection of the story or the verse to Shakespeare there is no evidence. On 10 September 1651 Charles II stayed in Long Marston at the house of a kinsman of Jane Lane called Tomes, on his way from Bentley Hall to Abbots Leigh during his escape following the defeat of the army at the

Battle of Worcester The Battle of Worcester took place on 3 September 1651 in and around the city of Worcester, England and was the last major battle of the 1642 to 1651 Wars of the Three Kingdoms. A Parliamentarian army of around 28,000 under Oliver Cromwell def ...

. He was traveling incognito as a servant to Jane Lane, sister-in-law of George Norton, the owner of the house at Abbots Leigh to which they were bound. In keeping with his outward guise as a servant, the cook of the house put him to work in the kitchen winding the jack used to roast meat in the fireplace. Charles was clumsy at this but explained his clumsiness by saying that as the son of poor people, he so rarely ate meat that he did not know how to use a roasting jack. Given the state of the economy at the time, his story was accepted and he was not identified.

Parish church

The

Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ...

of Saint James the Great has a 14th-century

Decorated Gothic English Gothic is an architectural style that flourished from the late 12th until the mid-17th century. The style was most prominently used in the construction of cathedrals and churches. Gothic architecture's defining features are pointed a ...

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

, but was rebuilt in the 19th century. The

pulpit A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, accesse ...

is Jacobean. The church is a

Grade I In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

listed building. Its parish is part of the

Benefice A benefice () or living is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The Roman Empire used the Latin term as a benefit to an individual from the Empire for services rendered. Its use was adopted by ...

of Quinton, Welford-on-Avon, Weston-on-Avon and Marston Sicca.

Railway

In 1859 the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway opened a branch line from to . Long Marston railway station opened at the same time as one of the stops on the line. In 1966

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Comm ...

ways withdrew passenger services between Honeybourne and Stratford, closed Long Marston station and removed the track between Long Marston and Stratford. The line between Honeybourne and Long Marston remains open for non-passenger trains to and from the former MoD depot. Long Marston Military Railway (LMMR) was a project at the MoD depot to keep alive military railway skills. A "Military Railfest" was planned for 6–10 May 2015 which was expected to include about 20 former army locomotives. Barclay

0-4-0 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents one of the simplest possible types, that with two axles and four coupled wheels, all of which are driven. The wheels on the earliest four-coupled locomotives were ...

DM ''Mulberry'' was already at Long Marston railway station and was to be joined by

USATC S160 Class The United States Army Transportation Corps S160 Class is a class of 2-8-0, 2-8-0 Consolidation steam locomotive, designed for heavy freight work in Europe during World War II. A total of 2,120 were built and they worked on railroads across much ...

2-8-0 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle, usually in a leading truck, eight powered and coupled driving wheels on four axles, and no trailing wheels. ...

number 3278 on 22 April 2014. The project had been using the shed vacated by the Stratford on Avon and Broadway Railway. In March 2015, it was reported that the project had collapsed and that the majority of the site would be redeveloped for housing, with sidings retained for the storage of

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or as the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent home counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The Undergro ...

District line The District line is a London Underground line running from in the east and Edgware Road tube station (Circle, District and Hammersmith & City lines), Edgware Road in the west to in west London, where it splits into multiple branches. One br ...

stock Stocks (also capital stock, or sometimes interchangeably, shares) consist of all the Share (finance), shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided. A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporatio ...

for Vivarail's conversion into

British Rail Class 230 The British Rail Class 230 ''D-Train'' is a diesel-electric multiple unit, Diesel multiple unit, diesel-battery electric multiple unit or battery electric multiple unit built by rolling stock manufacturer Vivarail for the British rail network. ...

multiple units. The

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

Line Promotion Group is promoting a scheme to reopen the of line south of Stratford upon Avon to where it would link to the

Cotswold Line The Cotswold Line is an railway line between and in England. History Early years The line between Oxford and Worcester was built under an 1845 Act of Parliament and opened in 1851 as part of the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway ...

. Called the " Avon Rail Link", the scheme (supported as a freight diversionary route by DB Schenker) would make Stratford-upon-Avon station a through station once again with improved connections to the South, and would open up the possibility of direct services to and

Worcester Worcester may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England ** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament * Worcester Park, London, Engl ...

via . The scheme faces local opposition. There is, however, a good business case for Stratford-

Cotswolds The Cotswolds ( ) is a region of central South West England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper River Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and the Vale of Evesham. The area is defined by the bedroc ...

link.

Airfield

Long Marston Airfield is north-east of the village. It was built in 1940 as RAF Long Marston and decommissioned as a military airfield in 1958. Since 1987 the airfield has been the venue of the Bulldog Bash, considered to be one of Europe's most popular annual motorcycle festivals. Since 2001 the airfield has also been the venue of the annual Global Gathering

club music Electronic dance music (EDM), also referred to as dance music or club music, is a broad range of percussive electronic music genres originally made for nightclubs, raves, and festivals. It is generally produced for playback by DJs who create s ...

festival.

Former military depot

Long Marston depot is a former

Ministry of Defence A ministry of defence or defense (see American and British English spelling differences#-ce.2C -se, spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and Mi ...

facility south-east of the village. Since the

privatisation Privatization (rendered privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation w ...

in the mid-1990s, rolling stock companies (ROSCOs) have used the depot to store out-of-lease

rolling stock The term rolling stock in the rail transport industry refers to railway vehicles, including both powered and unpowered vehicles: for example, locomotives, Railroad car#Freight cars, freight and Passenger railroad car, passenger cars (or coaches) ...

. In about 2009 the depot's owners, St. Modwen Properties, along with The Bird Group of Companies, proposed to redevelop the site as Middle Quinton eco-town. In 2021, it was announced that Porterbrook had leased the site for rail rolling stock storage.

Amenities

Long Marston has a

public house A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption Licensing laws of the United Kingdom#On-licence, on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the ...

, the Mason's Arms, and a community shop called the "Poppin". When developed, it's anticipated that the garden village will include a town centre in its own right including a community hall, medical centre and schools.

References

{{Authority control Villages in Warwickshire Civil parishes in Warwickshire Stratford-on-Avon District World War II prisoner-of-war camps in England Places formerly in Gloucestershire