Place:Prees, Shropshire, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Prees is a village and geographically large civil parish in north Shropshire, near the border between England and Wales. Its name is Celtic and means "brushwood" and in earlier sources this is found as "Prys-wood".

Prees is northeast of the small town of Wem, west of Market Drayton and south of Whitchurch.

The civil parish includes the smaller settlements of Sandford, Darliston, Fauls and Mickley, all to the east of the village of Prees. There are also a number of villages sharing the name Prees: Prees Green, Prees Heath and Prees Wood. However, Prees railway station is not in Prees parish, but in the neighbouring parish of Wem Rural, situated to the west.

The population of Prees parish in the UK census of 2001 was recorded at 2,688, and had increased to 2,895 in the 2011 census. In 1931 the acreage of the parish was 10,346, but in 1934 it was reduced when 2,102 acres were transferred to the parish of Ightfield to the northeast. This area included the village of Calverhall and the smaller settlement of Little Claverley. Since this area was part of Prees in 1900 it has been redirected here rather than to the parish of Ightfield.

The church in the village (dedicated to St. Chad) dates back to the 14th century, however the tower is of later date. As an ancient parish, Prees had the chapelries of Preston Gubbals and Whixall in its charge. Both chapelries became civil parishes in 1866.

Prees became part of Wem Rural District on its formation in 1894. When the rural district was abolished in 1967, Prees 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.

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 Whixall Independent Chapel registers is online and is provided through the auspices of GENUKI. The transcription of the Church of England parish registers for Prees was not available.