Much Marcle, Herefordshire

Description
Marcle, Much, a township and a parish in Herefordshire. The township lies adjacent to Gloucestershire, 5 miles SW of Ledbury, and 7 1/2 NE by N of Ross, and has a post and money order office under Gloucester; telegraph office, Dymock. Acreage, 4595 ; population, 756. The parish contains also the township of Yatton, and comprises 6047 acres 5 population of the civil parish, 923; of the ecclesiastical, 930. The manor is now divided into Marcle Audleys and Marcle Mortimers. The Mortimers had a castle, and tradition speaks of an EIlingham Castle, but the site has not been identified. Homme House, originally Elizabethan, and Hellens, built in the time of Henry VII., are chief residences. A remarkable landslip occurred on 17 Feb., 1575, at a place now called the Wonder. Marcle Hill there, on the evening of the 17th, began to move "with a horrible roaring noise;" it kept moving till the 19th, carrying along with it trees, hedges, and cattle, and overthrowing in its progress the chapel of Kinnaston; and it eventually settled in its present position, with an elevation greater than it originally had. A chasm, 40 feet deep and about 30 long, remained where the hill originally stood. The living is a vicarage, united with the chapelry of Yatton, in the diocese of Hereford; gross value, £600 with residence. The church stands on a rising-ground, is chiefly Norman, was restored in 1878, has a castellated tower, and contains monuments of the De Helions and the Mortimers. A small chapel adjoining the chancel was erected in 1628 by Sir John Kyrle; it contains an alabaster tomb of himself and his wife. There are Wesleyan and Primitive Methodist chapels.