MARSTON, a township, with a village, in Great Budworth parish, Cheshire; on the Trent and Mersey canal, 2¼ miles NNE of Northwich. Acres, 1,045. Real property, £7,401; of which £2,080 are in mines. Pop. in 1851,559; in 1861,745. Houses, 144. The increase of pop. arose from the removal hither of persons from Northwich, in consequence of the undermining of their houses by salt springs. Salt mines and extensive salt manufactories are here. The most noticeable of the mines has been worked since about 1777: has an excavated area of 33 acres; is 336 feet deep; forms a vast chamber, supported by pillars of salt 60 feet square and 15 feet high; was visited by the Emperor Nicholas of Russia in 1844, and then illuminated with upwards of 10,000 lights, and used for a banquet; and was visited by distinguished members of the British Association in 1854, when it was again splendidly iluminated, and when nearly 1,000 persons descended into it in one day. The manufacture of salt-pans and steam-boilers is carried on. A handsome Church of England school was erected in 1855; and is used, on Sunday evenings, as a chapel of ease.

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))