Place:Westbury, Shropshire, England

Watchers
NameWestbury
Alt namesCausesource: Castle Caus, Norman castle in parish
Caus Forestsource: settlement in parish
Lakesource: settlement in parish
Marchesource: settlement in parish
Newtown in Westburysource: settlement in parish
Stoney Strettonsource: settlement in parish
Venningtonsource: settlement in parish
Wallopsource: settlement in parish
Whitton in Westburysource: settlement in parish
Winsleysource: settlement in parish
Yockletonsource: settlement in parish
TypeParish (ancient), Civil parish
Coordinates52.683°N 2.95°W
Located inShropshire, England
See alsoFord Hundred, Shropshire, Englandhundred 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: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog
source: Family History Library Catalog


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

Westbury is a village and a large (15 sq mi (39 km2)) civil parish in Shropshire, England. It includes, as well as the village of Westbury, the settlements of Caus Forest, Lake, Marche, Newtown in Westbury, Stoney Stretton, Vennington, Wallop, Whitton in Westbury, Winsley and Yockleton. (The settlements listed are probably equivalent to the townships of the ancient parish mentioned but not named in John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72 (A Vision of Britain through Time. The two settlements ending in "in Westbury" have been so named to prevent them being confused with parishes of the same name elsewhere in Shropshire.)

Minsterley, now a parish to the east of Westbury, was a chapelry of Westbury until 1866. The village of Snailbeach is associated with it and with the parish of Worthen.

Westbury lies 8 miles west of the town of Shrewsbury, very close to the Wales-England border. It is located at 135m (410ft) altitude. The parish had a population of 1,352 according to the 2011 UK census. In 2005, Westbury parish was enlarged with the annexation of half of the former Wollaston parish which lay to the northwest and had an even longer border with Wales. Westbury village is situated on the B4386 road which travels from Shrewsbury to Montgomery.

end of Wikipedia contribution

The parish was located in the Ford Hundred. 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 which combined the rural districts, urban districts, municipal boroughs and county boroughs that existed within their newly drawn 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.

Caus Castle

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

During the Roman settlement of Britain Westbury was an outpost of Wroxeter. In about 1848, a piece of lead was found with markings of the name of the Roman Emperor Aurelian. About a mile from Westbury lie the scant ruins of Caus Castle (alternatively spelled Caux or Cause), which was originally used as a border stronghold. The castle was built in the late 11th century.

Roger le Corbet (or Fitz Corbet) was granted several manors in Shropshire in 1069 by William the Conqueror as the "Barony of Caus" for his role in the Norman conquest and invasion of England. They were named after his Normandy estate in the Pays de Caux, in France. The Corbets owed fealty to Roger de Montgomery, the first Earl of Shrewsbury, to help control Welsh Marches with absolute control over their demesne. Caus Castle was built by Roger le Corbet in the late 11th century as a high motte with a very small summit on which stood a tower and a strongly defended inner bailey.

The castle was sufficiently important that the Crown took an interest in its maintenance. Henry II had it garrisoned in 1165. In 1198 Roger Corbet re-built the tower, keep and curtain wall in stone. During the late 12th century a town or borough was founded in the large outer bailey. A royal grant of 50 marks was made in 1263 towards further building work, when D-shape towers were added to the curtain wall. The town contained a church of St. Margaret as well as the castle's church of St. Nicholas, and the names of two thoroughfares, Castle Street and St. Margaret Street are recorded. On the death of Beatrice Corbet in 1347 Caus passed to the Earl of Stafford. At its height in 1349, a year coinciding with the arrival of the Black Death in England, the borough had 58 burgesses resident.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Caus Castle.

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 Westbury 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 Westbury, 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.
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Caus Castle. 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.