We are a very active History society and will continue to update the pages on our main site as more information is found we do encourage you to look at these pages.
If you have anything of interest then please do get in contact with us. Below are some links you may find interesting relating to your house, local land marks and some of the big estates that were sold.
Researching your family or local families Here you will find details of people buried at St Mary’s as well as other documentation we have gathered
History of my house? Here you can see who lived in your house, what they did for a living, what the rent, old wills and inventories was etc.
Interesting documents and information here are sales particulars of some of the big estates
Ancient Shrawley
The early evidence of a settlement in what is now the Parish of Shrawley was centered near a ford across the Severn, between it and the Woods. It remained in constant use until bridges were built at Stourport and Holt and until the use of river vessels of a deeper draft demanded the construction of weirs and locks or the dredging and deepening of the shallows associated with rocky outcrops such as those at Shrawley Weyre.
It probably ceased to be useful about the middle of the nineteenth century. Associated with it and on higher ground was a “castle” or fortification obviously designed to protect the ford from marauders whether they were local bandits or invading Britons, Saxons, Danes or Normans. The tracks leading to and from the crossing place, later known as Redstone Ford, are generally regarded as having been important elements in the routes from North Wales, through the Abberley Gap to London via Hartlebury or Droitwich and, in the case of the latter, part of a “Salt way“.
The heavily wooded countryside included the Hundred of Doddingtree, which embraced the manors of Abberley, Astley and Glasshampton as well as that of Shrawley. The overlordship of the Hundred of Doddingtree was granted to a Ralph Todeni, a relative of the Duke of Normandy, in the year 1066 by William the Conqueror as a reward for his services as Standard Bearer during the Norman Conquest. He and other members of the family owned large areas of land throughout the county as recorded in the Domesday Rook. His sister owned the Manor of Elmley Lovett and Hadzor near Droitwich. After the Battle of Hastings, Ralph built the Priory near Astley Church and the well there still functions today. He also built castles at Abberley and Glasshampton.