George Marsh (martyr)

After his wife's death he left his children in the care of his parents and entered Cambridge University, where he associated with advocates of the reformed faith and in particular Lawrence Saunders.

After Saunders was arrested in 1554 George Marsh went north and continued preaching the Protestant faith in the parishes of Deane, Eccles and elsewhere in Lancashire.

After being "examined" at Smithills, according to local tradition, Marsh stamped his foot so hard to re-affirm his faith that a footprint was left in the stone floor.

Marsh, however resisted the efforts to make him submit and when he refused recant was taken to Lancaster Gaol where he was brought for trial at the Quarter Sessions.

For nearly a year, Marsh remained in Lancaster Gaol where he read from the Bible and prayed with townsfolk gathered outside his window until George Cotes, the Catholic Bishop of Chester intervened.

[7] Marsh's follower and brother-in-law Geoffrey Hurst, a Shakerley nail maker, was also imprisoned at Lancaster but was saved from execution by Queen Mary's death.

[1] George Marsh was executed in April 1555 on the north side of the road in Boughton, about a mile from Chester city centre.

When Protestant martyr George Marsh was burned at the stake on gallows hill close by his ashes were collected by his friends and buried here.

[10]In the library at Smithills Hall are some of George Marsh's personal letters and journals and a 17th-century edition of John Foxe's Book of Martyrs which documents his trial.