Place:Astley, Shropshire, England

Watchers
NameAstley
Alt namesUpper Astleysource: hamlet in parish
TypeVillage, Civil parish
Coordinates52.765°N 2.699°W
Located inShropshire, England
See alsoShrewsbury St. Mary, Shropshire, Englandancient parish of which it was part
Shrewsbury Liberty, Shropshire, Englanddivision of Shropshire in which it was located
Atcham Rural, Shropshire, Englandrural district 1894-1974
Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough, Shropshire, Englandadministrative district covering the area 1974-2009
Shropshire District, Shropshire, Englandunitary authority covering the area since 2009
source: Family History Library Catalog

NOTE: There are parishes named Astley in Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire, English counties that border each other. Make sure you select the correct one.


the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Astley is a small village and civil parish in Shropshire, England. The official 2001 UK census recorded 454 people living in the parish and 116 in the village itself, falling slightly to 449 in the parish at the 2011 census.

The village lies near to (and between) the A53 and A49 roads. Upper Astley is a hamlet on the A53 about half a mile to the south of the village of Astley.

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Astley from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"ASTLEY, a chapelry in the parish of St. Mary Shrewsbury, Salop [or Shropshire]; 2¾ miles ENE of Hadnall [railway] station, and 6½ miles NE of Shrewsbury. Post Town: Shawbury under Shrewsbury. Acres: 1,168. Rated property: £1,670. Population: 239. Houses: 54. The property is divided among a few. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Lichfield. Value: £56. Patrons: Trustees. The church is good."

The parish was located in the Shrewsbury Liberty. From 1894 until 1974 the parish was in the Atcham Rural District of Shropshire. In 1974 rural districts throughout England were abolished and replaced with new metropolitan districts combined rural districts, urban districts, municipal boroughs and county boroughs within their geographical borders. The Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough, so created, existed until 2009 when it was replaced by a unitary authority called the Shropshire District which covered the whole of the county with the exception of The Wrekin District (to the east of Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough) which was formed in 1998.

Research Tips

  • The historical short form for Shropshire was "Salop". This is quite often found in archive material.
  • Shropshire Archives, Castle Gates, Shrewsbury SY1 2AQ
  • Shropshire Family History Society.
  • The GENUKI main page for Shropshire provides information on various topics covering the whole of the county, and there is also a link to a list of parishes. Under each parish there is a list of the settlements within it and brief description of each. This is a list of pre-1834 ancient or ecclesiastical parishes but there are suggestions as to how to find parishes set up since then.
  • GENUKI also provides transcriptions of parish registers for numerous parishes throughout Shropshire. These will be noted at the bottom of this list as time permits for the parishes involved. Each register is preceded by historical notes from the editor-transciber and other details than simply births, marriages and deaths that have been found in the individual books from the parishes. These registers probably only go up to 1812 when the proscribed style for registers across the country was altered.
  • GENUKI lists under each parish further references to other organizations who hold genealogical information for the local area. (URLs for these other websites may not be up to date.)
  • The FamilyTree Wiki has a series of pages similar to those provided by GENUKI which may have been prepared at a later date and from more recent data. The wiki has a link to English Jurisdictions 1851. There is a list of all the parishes in existence in 1851 with maps indicating their boundaries. The website is very useful for finding the ecclesiastical individual parishes within large cities and towns.
  • A Vision of Britain through Time, Shropshire, section "Units and Statistics" leads to analyses of population and organization of the county from about 1800 through 1974. There are similar pages available for all civil parishes, municipal boroughs and other administrative divisions that existed pre-1974. Descriptions provided are usually based on a gazetteer of 1870-72 which often provides brief notes on the economic basis of the settlement and significant occurences through its history.
  • The two maps below indicate the boundaries between parishes, etc., but for a more detailed view of a specific area try a map from this selection. The oldest series are very clear at the third magnification offered. Comparing the map details with the GENUKI details for the same area is well worthwhile.
  • Map of Shropshire illustrating urban and rural districts in 1900 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time. Parish boundaries and settlements within parishes are shown. (Unfortunately the online copy of this map has pencil codings in each parish which make it difficult to see the orignal.)
  • Map of Shropshire urban and rural districts in 1944 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time. Parish boundaries and settlements within parishes are shown. This is not a repeat of the first map. There were a number of changes to urban and rural district structure in the 1930s.
  • A map of the ancient divisions named "hundreds" is to be found in A Vision of Britain through Time. Some of the hundreds were broken into separate sections with other hundreds in between.
  • The website British History Online provides four volumes of the Victoria County History Series on Shropshire. Volume 2 covers the religious houses of the county; Volume 4 provides a history of agriculture across the county, and Volumes 10 and 11 deal with Munslow Hundred, the Borough of Wenlock and the Telford area (i.e., the northeastern part of the county). The rest of the county is not presently covered. References to individual parishes will be furnished as time permits.
  • A transcription of the Astley parish registers is online and is provided through the auspices of GENUKI.
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Astley, Shropshire. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.