Place:Clun, Shropshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Clun (Welsh: Colunwy) is a small town in south Shropshire, England, and the Shropshire Hills area of outstanding natural beauty. The 2011 census recorded 680 people living in the town, but the population of the modern civil parish of "Clun and Chapel Lawn" was 1,184 as measured by the 2011 census.

Clun was on the historic drove road where flocks and herds were driven from Wales to the markets in the Midlands and London. It is said that the population of the town is now smaller than it was during the flourishing days of the wool trade in England centuries ago.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Clun.

A Vision of Britain through Time provides a description of Clun from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72. The following is a condensation of a very long article which also describes the river, the registration sub-district, the registration district and the hundred:

"CLUN, a small town [and] a parish, in Salop [Shropshire]....The town stands on the river, 3 miles W of Offa's dyke, 5½ SSW of Bishops-Castle, and 6½ N by E of Knighton [railway] station; is a polling-place, and a nominal borough, governed by a bailiff and 30 burgesses, under Earl Powis: gives the title of Baron to the Duke of Norfolk; and has a head post office, a hotel, a town-hall, a five-arched bridge, a ruined ancient castle, a parish church, two dissenting chapels, and an hospital for poor men, under a master or warden. The castle was built, in the time of Henry III., by the Fitzalans; and destroyed by Owen Glendower. The town hall is a modern structure on arches. The church is partly Norman; and has a font and monuments. The hospital was founded, in 1614, by Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton; is a plain quadrangular edifice, with a chapel; and has an endowed income of £1,530. A weekly market is held on Wednesday; and fairs on Whit-Monday and Nov. 22.

"The parish comprises also the division of Ediclift or Bicton, containing the townships of Ediclift, Bicton, Whitcott Keyset, and Shadwell; the division of Newcastle, containing the townships of Newcastle, Spoad, Whitcott-Evan, and part of Kevencalonog; and the division of Hopebendrid or Treverward, containing the townships of Hopebendrid, Treverward, Menutton, Perlogne, and Obarris. Acres: 19,782. Rated property: £14,070. Population: 2,338. Houses: 482.

"The property is much sub-divided. The manor belonged early to the Fitzalans; went, in the time of Elizabeth, to the Dukes of Norfolk; and passed to the Walcots and the Earls of Powis. There are several ancient British and Roman remains, particularly at Offa's dyke, the Bury ditches, and Caer-Caradoc. The living is a vicarage, united with the [perpetual] curacy of Chapel Lawn, in the diocese of Hereford. Value: £680. Patron: the Earl of Powis. The vicarage of Newcastle is a separate benefice."

In the list of townships at the top of the page (taken from Wilson's Gazetteer entry, those with "Clun" in brackets are common placenames which may be duplicated in other parts of Shropshire.

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