I only realised we were in the English version of Marburg as we pulled into Marbury Park for our first walk back in the homeland, the shire. I couldn’t believe the coincidence that our family’s Christmas-time location was Marbury, but on closer examination, this is hardly a coincidence. The German suffix “burg”, much like the English suffix “bury” (previously “burh”), means fortress or stronghold. The difference is in the “mar”. In “Marburg”, “Mar” indicates the boundary (“mark”) between two territories (that of the count of Thuringia and that of the archbishop of Mainz). The “Mar” in “Marbury” refers to the surrounding meres and lakes (e.g. neighbouring Delamere and Manley mere). Whilst the first recording of Marburg dates back to 1130, Marbury was first mentioned in the Domesday book in 1086 as Merberie.

There really is nothing like the feeling of…