Place:Little Stretton, Shropshire, England

Watchers
NameLittle Stretton
Alt namesHamperleysource: from redirect
Mintonsource: from redirect
TypeTownship, Civil parish
Coordinates52.521°N 2.822°W
Located inShropshire, England
See alsoChurch Stretton Rural, Shropshire, Englandrural district 1894-1934
Church Stretton, Shropshire, Englandurban district into which it was absorbed in 1934
Ludlow Rural, Shropshire, Englandrural district 1967-1974
South Shropshire District, Shropshire, Englandadministrative district covering the area 1974-2009
Shropshire District, Shropshire, Englandunitary authority covering the area since 2009
the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Little Stretton is a village, and a former township and civil parish, in Shropshire, England.

The village lies on the B5477 road to the south of the town of Church Stretton (and is part of the civil parish of that town); similarly, the small village of All Stretton lies to the north of Church Stretton on the same road. The town of Ludlow is 14 miles away, to the south; while the centre of Church Stretton is 1.3 miles (2.1 km) to the north.

The River Ashes Hollow runs through the village and it is a popular place to begin walks up the Long Mynd. The village lies between 590 and 616 feet above sea level. The Ragleth Hill lies immediately to the east of the village, on the other side of the Welsh Marches Railway Line and A49. Little Stretton once had its own railway halt.

To the southwest are the hamlets of Minton and Hamperley. Little Stretton was previously a civil parish itself, but in 1934 the whole parish merged with that of Church Stretton and a large part of All Stretton, to form the modern day parish of Church Stretton.

Little Stretton was originally a township in the parish of Church Stretton, but was made a civil parish in 1894 and part of the Church Stretton Rural District, while Church Stretton itself became an urban district in 1899. At the time of the merger Church Stretton Rural District was abolished and in 1967 Church Stretton ceased to be an urban district and was absorbed into Ludlow Rural District. In 1974 the whole of Ludlow Rural District became part of the newly formed non-metropolitan South Shropshire District. This 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 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.
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Little Stretton, 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.