Place:Whitchurch, Shropshire, England

Watchers
NameWhitchurch
Alt namesDodingtonsource: township absorbed into urban district in 1894
TypeTownship, Parish (ancient), Civil parish, Urban district
Coordinates52.967°N 2.683°W
Located inShropshire, England
See alsoNorth Bradford Hundred, Shropshire, Englandhundred in which it was located
North Shropshire Rural, Shropshire, Englandrural district which it joined in 1967
North Shropshire District, Shropshire, Englandnon-metropolitan district 1974-2009
Shropshire District, Shropshire, Englandunitary authority covering the area since 2009
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog
There are 8 different parishes named Whitchurch around England and Wales--according to the 2011 UK census. Care should be taken in selecting the right one.


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

Whitchurch is a market town in northern Shropshire, England. It lies 2 miles (3 km) east of the Welsh border, 20 miles (30 km) north of the county town of Shrewsbury, 20 miles (30 km) south of Chester, and 15 miles (24 km) east of Wrexham. At the 2011 UK census, the population of the town was 9,781. Whitchurch is the oldest continuously inhabited town in Shropshire.

Modern Governance

In 1894 the town of Whitchurch became an urban district (and also the parish of Whitchurch Urban) and the rural part of the original parish became Whitchurch Rural (parish). This latter parish and the parish of Ightfield were the only parishes within Whitchurch Rural District. Whitchurch Rural District was abolished in 1934; Whitchurch Urban District was abolished in 1967 on the formation of the North Shropshire Rural District.

History

Whitchurch was originally a settlement founded by the Romans about AD 52–70 called Mediolanum (lit. "Midfield" or "middle of the plain"); it stood on a major Roman road between Chester and Wroxeter. In 1066, at the Norman conquest, Whitchurch was called Westune ('west farmstead'), probably for its location on the western edge of Shropshire, with the Welsh Marches on its northern border.

By the time it was recorded in Domesday Book (1086), Whitchurch was held by William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, and Roger de Montgomery.

The surrounding hamlets became townships and Dodtune ('the settlement of Dodda's people') is now fully integrated into Whitchurch as Dodington. The first church was built on the hill in AD 912. After the Norman Conquest a motte and bailey castle and a new white church of Grinshill stone were built. Westune became Album Monasterium ('White Church'). When the local language changed to Middle English the name Whitchurch, meaning "a church constructed of white stone in the Norman period", replaced Album Monasterium.

In 1377 the Whitchurch estates passed to the Talbot family. It was sold by the Talbots to Thomas Egerton, from whom it passed to the earls of Bridgwater and eventually to Earl Brownlow.

The town was granted market status in the fourteenth century. Whitchurch's third parish church collapsed in July 1711 and the present Queen Anne parish Church of St. Alkmund was immediately constructed to take its place. It was consecrated in 1713.

Lords of Whitchurch

William fitz Ranulf is the earliest individual of the Warenne family recorded as the Lord of Whitchurch, Shropshire, first appearing in the Shropshire Pipe Roll of 1176. In 1859, Robert Eyton (author of The Antiquities of Shropshire) considered it likely that Ralph, son of William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey, was the father of William and that he first held that title. However, other theories have been put forward.

Later history

During the reign of Henry I in the 12th century, Whitchurch was in the North Division of Bradford Hundred which by the 1820s was referred to as North Bradford Hundred. In the eighteenth century many of the earlier timber-framed buildings were refaced in the more fashionable brick. New elegant Georgian houses were built at the southern end of the High Street and in Dodington.

As dairy farming became more profitable Whitchurch developed as a centre for Cheshire cheese production. Cheese fairs were held on every third Wednesday when farm cheeses were brought into town for sale. Cheese and other goods could be easily transported to wider markets when the Whitchurch Arm of Thomas Telford's Llangollen Canal was opened in 1811. The railway station was opened in 1858 on the first railway line in North Shropshire, running from Crewe to Shrewsbury.

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

"WHITCHURCH, a town in Salop [or Shropshire], a parish partly also in Cheshire, a district partly likewise in Flint[shire], but all registrationally in Salop, and a [parliamentary] division electorally in Salop. The town stands at the terminus of a short branch of the Ellesmere canal, and at the junction of the railways from Shrewsbury and Oswestry to Crewe, 19 miles N by E of Shrewsbury; was anciently called Blancminster; had an hospital before the time of Henry II, and an ancient castle; is a seat of petty-sessions and county-courts, and a polling place; occupies a gentle eminence, amid pleasant environs; was recently improved by the formation of sewage-works; carries on brewing, malting, iron-founding, and machine-making; and has a head post-office, [railway] stations with telegraph, two banking-offices, three chief inns, a police station, a town hall, a newsroom, a church rebuilt in 1713, four dissenting chapels, an endowed grammar-school with £459 a year, another endowed school with £50, a working men's club, a young men's institute, alms houses with £216, a workhouse, general charities £209, a weekly market on Friday, and 4 annual fairs.
"Population [of the town] in 1861: 3,704. Houses: 793. The parish includes 12 townships in Salop, and one in Cheshire; and comprises 15,416 acres. Real property: £34,477; of which £225 are in gasworks. Population: 6,093. Houses: 1,280. The manor belongs to Earl Brownlow. The living is a rectory, united with Marbury, in the diocese of Lichfield. Value: £1,458. Patron: Earl Brownlow. A chapel of ease is at Dodington; and the [perpetual] curacies of Ash and Tilstock are separate benefices."

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.
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Whitchurch, 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.