Home to Concord College, it is also famous for an early meeting of Parliament where the Statute of Acton Burnell was passed in 1283.

[1] The village today has a post office and Anglican parish church, as well as a Roman Catholic cemetery.

Running to the north-west of the village is a Roman road, that ran between the modern day settlements of Wroxeter and Leintwardine.

For 20 years, as guests of Sir Edward Smythe a former pupil, the monks of Douai, following expulsion from France in the French Revolution, lived in community at Acton Burnell until they moved to Somerset, where they founded Downside Abbey, in 1814.

Robert Burnell was the Bishop of Bath and Wells and Lord Chancellor to King Edward I.