Weald Moors
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 The River Strine, here south of Cherrington, drains part of the Weald Moors. | |
  Weald Moors Location within Shropshire | |
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| Ceremonial county | |
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| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
The Weald Moors are located in the ceremonial county of Shropshire north of Telford, stretching from north and west of the town of Newport towards Wellington, with the village of Kynnersley lying roughly at their centre.
Although the Weald Moors are now largely agricultural land, they were among the last parts of the area to come into cultivation. The word weald (which elsewhere means open uplands or waste) in this context means "wild" or uncultivated: the "wild moors". [1] A moor, in Shropshire usage, was a marsh. The spelling "Wildmore" or "Wyldemore" appears in documents from 1300 to 1586, [2] and "Wildmoor" until well into the 19th century.
The historic marsh or fenland character of the Weald Moors was formed after the last Ice Age, when the area was part of the glacial Lake Newport, connected to the larger Lake Lapworth. An underlying accumulation of peat led to the development of a large basin mire with waterlogged land: by the mediaeval period larger settlements had only developed on its edges, [3] although an Iron Age marsh fort at Wall Camp is evidence that the defensible nature of the marshland was exploited by early inhabitants.
Under the mediaeval manorial system most of the area became classified as uncultivated "waste". Part of the Weald Moor, together with the Wrekin, seems to have for a time formed a royal forest known as Vasta Regalis, with Sir Humphrey de Eyton recorded as forest Warden in 1390; the old name was still remembered in a tract of land called "The Gales" as late as the 19th century. [4]
Between the mid 16th and mid 17th centuries, there were a series of lawsuits as attempts were made to drain and enclose sections of the moor, leading to disputes over parish and township boundaries. [5] For example, in 1583 Thomas Cherrington took a neighbouring landowner, Thurston Woodcock, to court alleging that Woodcock had employed "diverse desperate and lewd persons" to dig a drainage ditch across land claimed by Cherrington. Woodcock responded by arguing that the land was waste, and part of Meeson Moor. [6] A good deal of land on the western side of the area was drained and enclosed by Sir Walter Leveson of Lilleshall, proprietor of the manor of Wrockwardine, in the late 16th century, and by the 1650s around 2700 acres of wetland had already been drained and enclosed. [7] Peat digging was carried out on parts of the Moors, and the inhabitants of villages on the edge of the area, such as Wrockwardine, used some areas as summer pasture under historic rights of common. Wrockwardine's uniquely extensive common rights over the southern and western Weald Moors may have originated in its status as an 11th-century royal manor and administrative centre. [8] By the 17th century the village was linked to the moors by a road whose verges had been enclosed for squatter's cottages, forming a separate settlement known as Long Lane. [9]
A late 17th century parson of Kinnardsey (Kynnersley), the Rev. George Plaxton, wrote an account of the Weald Moors in 1673 in which he described much of it as still an impassable bog, and suggested that the entire area had until recently been a marsh other than those hamlets having the Anglo-Saxon word ey ("island") in their names. [10] Plaxton was informed by elderly residents of the parish that the Moors had formerly been so overgrown with willow, alder and other marshland trees that they had customarily hung bells around the necks of their cattle to prevent losing them. [11]
In 1801 an Enclosure act, the "Wildmoors Inclosure Act", was passed, enabling local landowners (principally the Leveson-Gower family) to begin further drainage works. At this time the remaining marshland covered around 1200 acres, with a further 600 acres of adjoining land left uncultivated: the majority was used as summer grazing by tenant farmers and in the winter was flooded and impassable. [12] The works involved widening, straightening and embanking the existing strines, or brooks, and reversing the course of the old Preston Strine to eliminate seasonal flooding. [13] Although as a result during the course of the early 19th century most of the area was reclaimed as farmland, some of the land remained suitable only as sheep pasture, being too boggy to bear cattle or grow other crops. Settlements remained small and scattered, and even now, the villages on the Moors are relatively small and isolated, although the northern suburbs of Telford are encroaching onto the area. The Weald Moors are still referenced in the names of the villages Eyton upon the Weald Moors and Preston upon the Weald Moors.
Some parts of the moors are known by local names, such as the Tibberton and Cherrington Moors near the villages of the same name. Others are the Birch Moors around Adeney, the Rough or Preston Moors north of Preston, the Dayhouse Moor near Rodway, the Longford Moor west of Edgmond, and the Sleap Moor east of Crudgington.
The Shrewsbury Canal (a branch of the Shropshire Union Canal) was constructed across the area, but is today derelict.
The farmland of the Weald Moors is a habitat for many birds which have now become rare elsewhere, such as the Barn Owl and Lapwing. In recent years there has been some reflooding and restoration of fenland habitat in the area of Kynnersley. [6]
The Fens or Fenlands in eastern England are a naturally marshy region supporting a rich ecology and numerous species. Most of the fens were drained centuries ago, resulting in a flat, dry, low-lying agricultural region supported by a system of drainage channels and man-made rivers and automated pumping stations. There have been unintended consequences to this reclamation, as the land level has continued to sink and the dykes have been built higher to protect it from flooding.
Telford is a town in Shropshire, England. It is the administrative centre of Telford and Wrekin borough, a unitary authority which covers the town, its suburbs and surrounding settlements. The town is close to the county's eastern boundary, and near the River Severn.
Donnington is an area / housing estate located in the borough of Telford and Wrekin and ceremonial county of Shropshire, England. The population of Donnington Ward was 6,883 at the 2011 census.
The River Perry is a river in Shropshire, England. It rises near Oswestry and flows south to meet the River Severn above Shrewsbury. Along its 24 miles (39 km) length, its level drops by some 320 feet (95 m). The channel has been heavily engineered, both to enable water mills to be powered by it, and to improve the drainage of the surrounding land. There were at least seven corn mills in the 1880s, and the last one remained operational until 1966. The middle section of the river crosses Baggy Moor, where major improvements were made in 1777 to drain the moor. The scheme was one of the largest to enclose and improve land in North Shropshire, and the quality of the reclaimed land justified the high cost. A section of the river bed was lowered in the 1980s, to continue the process.
The Shrewsbury Canal was a canal in Shropshire, England. Authorised in 1793, the main line from Trench to Shrewsbury was fully open by 1797, but it remained isolated from the rest of the canal network until 1835, when the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal built the Newport Branch from Norbury Junction to a new junction with the Shrewsbury Canal at Wappenshall. After ownership passed to a series of railway companies, the canal was officially abandoned in 1944; many sections have disappeared, though some bridges and other structures can still be found. There is an active campaign to preserve the remnants of the canal and to restore the Norbury to Shrewsbury line to navigation.
Cherrington is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Tibberton and Cherrington, in the Telford and Wrekin district, in the ceremonial county of Shropshire, England. It was recorded as a manor in Domesday, when it was held by Gerard de Tournai, and was stated to have been held by a man named Uliet in the time of Edward the Confessor, although it was recorded as "waste", in an uncultivated state, by the time Gerard took possession of it. In 1961 the parish had a population of 122.
Kynnersley is a village in Shropshire, England.
Admaston is a village in the English ceremonial county of Shropshire, in the borough of Telford & Wrekin. It is located northwest of Wellington and close to the village of Wrockwardine. It now forms part of the Telford new town.
Tibberton and Cherrington is a parish in the Telford and Wrekin borough of Shropshire, England.
A mere is a shallow lake, pond, or wetland, particularly in Great Britain and other parts of western Europe.
Francis Newport, 1st Earl of Bradford PC, styled The Honourable between 1642 and 1651, was an English soldier, courtier and Whig politician.
Lilleshall Abbey was an Augustinian abbey in Shropshire, England, today located 6 miles (9.7 km) north of Telford. It was founded between 1145 and 1148 and followed the austere customs and observance of the Abbey of Arrouaise in northern France. It suffered from chronic financial difficulties and narrowly escaped the Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries in 1536, before going into voluntary dissolution in 1538.
Preston upon the Weald Moors is a small village on the northern edge of the town of Telford, part of the borough of Telford and Wrekin in Shropshire. According to the 2001 census the village had a population of 205 although this is likely to have risen due to various building conversions over the proceeding ten years. The population was measured at 224 in the 2011 census. It is one of a number of villages that exist on the Weald Moors of Shropshire.
Sir Walter Leveson was an Elizabethan Member of Parliament and a Shropshire and Staffordshire landowner who was ruined by involvement in piracy and mental illness.
Wombridge Priory was a small Augustinian monastery in Shropshire. Established in the early 12th century, it was supported by a network of minor nobility and was never a large community. Despite generally good financial management, it fell within the scope of the Suppression of Religious Houses Act 1535 and was dissolved in the following year.
Shawbirch is a residential area in the ceremonial county of Shropshire, in the Unitary Authority of Telford and Wrekin. It is located west of Admaston, north of Wellington and east of Hortonwood.
There are a number of listed buildings in Shropshire. The term "listed building", in the United Kingdom, refers to a building or structure designated as being of special architectural, historical, or cultural significance. Details of all the listed buildings are contained in the National Heritage List for England. They are categorised in three grades: Grade I consists of buildings of outstanding architectural or historical interest, Grade II* includes significant buildings of more than local interest and Grade II consists of buildings of special architectural or historical interest. Buildings in England are listed by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on recommendations provided by English Heritage, which also determines the grading.
The River Strine is a 3.4-mile-long (5.4 km) tributary of the River Tern flowing through the Telford and Wrekin district of Shropshire in England. The river drains the Weald Moors a fenland area north of Telford, and also takes runoff from Newport and Lilleshall. Tributaries of the Strine include the Pipe Strine, Red Strine, and Wall Brook.