Place:Moreton Corbet, Shropshire, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

"MORETON-CORBET, a village and a parish in Wem [registration] district, Salop [or Shropshire]. The village stands on the river Roden, 3¾ miles E of Yorton [railway] station, and 4¾ SE of Wem. The parish contains also part of the township of Preston Brockhurst, which has a post office under Shrewsbury. Acres: 2,140. Rated property: £2,418. Population: 255. Houses: 51. The manor and all the land belong to Sir V. R. Corbet, Bart. Moreton-Corbet Castle was erected in the 16th century, on the site of a previous castle; was burnt in the civil war of Charles I.; and is now a fine ruin. Several mills are on the Roden. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Lichfield. Value: £361. Patron: Sir V. R. Corbet, Bart. The church is ancient; has a tower and several stained windows; and contains ancient effigies and monuments of the Corbets Charities, £6."

Moreton Corbet became part of the Wem Rural District when it was former in 1894. When the rural district was abolished in 1967, Moreton Corbet was transferred into the North Shropshire Rural District which combined the rural districts of Wem and Ellesmere, together with their urban districts and also Whitchurch municipal borough. In 1974 the whole area became the non-metropolitan North Shropshire District which continued until 2009 when it was replaced by the unitary authority named Shropshire District. The Shropshire District now represents the whole of Shropshire with the exception of The Wrekin District. (Source: A Vision of Britain through Time)

History

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

Moreton Corbet Castle

The first castle built at Moreton Corbet was not built from stone, but was most likely to have been a timber building. It was around 1200, that the Castle became a stone structure. The Castle was an impressive build; it consisted of a gatehouse, a keep, high curtain walls surrounding it and unlike most other castle's, was rough triangular in shape.

In 1086, at the time of the Domesday Survey, Moreton Castle, and twelve other manors, were held by Thorold of Verley from Roger of Montgomery. Both of his tenants, Hunning and Wulfgeat of Saxon descent, had been allowed to keep their estates as they were pre-Conquest tenants also. However, in 1086, the manor was passed to one of Hunning's Saxon contemporaries, known as Toret.

Toret's son, Bartholomew Toret, fell out with King of England at the time, King John, and was thrown into jail. The Castle was passed onto the Norman Richard Corbet of Wattlesborough, when Bartholomew's daughter Johanna married him in 1239.

The Corbets

After the marriage between Toret's heiress and Richard Corbet, Moreton Corbet Castle became their home during the 12th century. On 5 August 1100, a grant of 'Hortuna' was made by the Corbet family to William 'Macro' and his heirs, requiring them to provide military protection for the parish of Stanton Upon Hine Heath for a duration of close to 35 years.

The land was sold in the 13th century by Thomas Corbet to John son of John Extraneo and the commune of Shrewsbury after which the land was leased or granted to various parties in the township.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Moreton Corbet.

NOTE: The above account of Moreton Corbet Castle and the Corbet family was take from the Wikipedia article on the neighbouring parish of Stanton upon Hine Heath. In Wikipedia's article on Moreton Corbet is an account of the family from the 16th century to the end of the 18th. Another part of the Corbet family lived at Cause Castle in Westbury parish further west.

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 Moreton Corbet parish registers is online and is provided through the auspices of GENUKI.