AN ENGRAVED stone slab that is one of the oldest artefacts from Urmston's history is now on display in the town.

The one hundredweight stone was originally part of Urmston Hall, which was destroyed in a blaze in the late 1400s..

It is engraved with a coat of arms, dating back more than 500 years, which belonged to the Egerton family, who once lived at the hall.

Now it is on display at St Clement's Chuch, on Manor Avenue, Urmston – just a couple of hundred yards away from where Urmston Hall used to stand, on Queens Road/Manor Avenue. This is now the site of Ormeston Lodge, a retirement/sheltered housing complex.

John Howe, the president and acting chairman of Urmston Local History Society, said: "It is an important piece of our heritage.

"It is the oldest piece of Urmston we have."

The stone tablet, which is 2ft square and eight inches thick, has been on display at the church for about five months, after coming into the society's hands about two years ago. For most of that time it has been at the Timperley headquarters of South Trafford Archaeological Group as it researched it.

It was handed to the society by a family, who had used it as a garden ornament since the 1930s.

John explained that after the original hall was destroyed, a new house was built in th late sixteenth to early seventeenth century. The stones from the original house were used to construct the outbuildings, such as barns and cow sheds.

The stone slab with the coat of arms on was used for the cow shed.

In 1933, the second Urmston Hall was pulled down along with the outbuildings, including the cow shed.

The bricks were used to build a house nearby but residents from the area also recycled some of the stones, often using theme for rockeries and ornaments in their gardens.

These residents included a family from Queens Road, who took the stone with the Egerton coat of arms and kept it in their garden.

The family realised the significance of the stone and took it with them when they later moved house, from Queens Road to nearby Meadowgate

But when they were about to move again a couple of years ago, they alerted the society to the stone and handed it to them.