Place:Broughton (near Shrewsbury), Shropshire, England

Parish of Broughton

The parish of Broughton (located north of Shrewsbury, the county town of Shropshire) was previously a chapelry in the parish of St. Chad, Shrewsbury (A Vision of Britain through Time says Shrewsbury St. Mary), one of the ancient parishes of Shrewsbury which controlled areas in the rural areas around the town. Broughton became a separate parish in 1718. The old church, dedicated to St. Margaret, was abandoned because of flooding and the wetness of the churchyard. A new church, dedicated to St. Mary, was built on higher ground. It was consecrated on Wednesday, 27 April 1859. (Coordinates are for the modern church, the old church being at approximately 52.811 N, 2.7415 W)

The parish was part of the Wem Rural District from 1894 until 1967. This indicates that it was at the northern margin of what was previously called the Shrewsbury Liberty, and the influence of the large town of Shrewsbury was less effective than it was closer to the centre. When Wem Rural District was abolished in 1967, Broughton 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 represented the whole of Shropshire with the exception of The Wrekin District. (Source: A Vision of Britain through Time)

Since 1967 Broughton ceased to exist as a separate civil parish, and it is now part of the civil parish of "Myddle, Broughton and Harmer Hill" (see below).

Research tips

Resources

• Online sources:

• A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Broughton (near Shrewsbury) from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"BROUGHTON, a parish in Wem [registration] district, Salop [or Shropshire]; on the Crewe and Shrewsbury railway, at Yorton station, 3½ miles SSW of Wem. It includes the township of Yorton; and its Post Town is Grinshill, under Shrewsbury. Acres: 880. Rated property: £1,619. Population: 223. Houses: 45. The property is divided among a few. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Lichfield. Value: £65. Patron: Viscount Hill. The church was built in 1860; is in the early decorated style; and consists of nave and chancel, with bell turret and vestry."

• Wikipedia

"Myddle, Broughton and Harmer Hill" is a civil parish in Shropshire, England. The population of this civil parish at the 2011 UK census was 1,333.

"The parish was created as the result of a merger of two older parishes - Myddle and Broughton. It was originally known as "Myddle and Broughton", until it was renamed in 2015[2] to recognise of the significance of the village of Harmer Hill, which together with Myddle is the other main population centre in the parish."

• Written histories:

• A history of St Mary's Church, Broughton, entitled “A Tale of Two Churches”, written by Canon William Price, former parish rector, in 2008.[1]
• “Broughton Registers” (to 1812), Shropshire parish registers: Diocese of Lichfield, Vol. I (1900).
• Broughton's history, from Rev. John Brickdale Blakeway's manuscript (written about 1809), serialized as “History of Shrewsbury Hundred or Liberties”, Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological and Natural History Society (1889).

• Sources for Shropshire in general

• 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.