Badger was a long way down the territorial scale, its manor run by a man two levels below the regional magnate, Earl Roger.

A little later, in the early 12th century, under Henry I, Earl Roger's son, Robert, lost his earldom and the barons of Richard's Castle are at the top of the pyramid (beneath the king, of course).

After that it passed from father to son for nearly two centuries, until 1349, and stayed within the same family until 1402, when Alice, widow of John de Badger, died without issue.

The rector lived on tithes and Easter offerings, and also had an area of glebe land and, for some centuries, the rent of a house inhabited by the Blakemans.

Since the dissolution of the monasteries, advowson or the right to present an incumbent had technically belonged to the Crown, but the old arrangement, by which the lord of the manor made the initial nomination, still held.

Around 1719, John Kynnersley demolished the old timber-framed manor house and built a new hall, a substantial but unpretentious building with six ground floor rooms, just to the north of the old site.

Firstly a large part of the east of the parish was hived off as a separate estate: Badger Heath,[11] which for more than a century was farmed by the Taylor family, before being sold to the Greens in 1796.

Despite concentration of holdings, Badger's landscape remains mainly one of farms, predominantly arable but with considerable pasturage.

Returning from the Grand Tour, Browne set about living the life of a country gentleman on his Shropshire estates at Badger and at Malinslee, near Dawley.

Browne ingratiated himself with the local gentry, serving as High Sheriff for 1783 and as member of parliament for the pocket borough of Bridgnorth, a fiefdom of the Whitmore family of Dudmaston Hall from 1784 until 1812.

Between 1779 and 1783, he had it greatly extended, to a design by James Wyatt, with a museum, library, and conservatory, elaborate plasterwork by Joseph Rose, and paintings by Robert Smirke.

He had the dell along the Batch Brook, on the south edge of the village, improved to a plan by William Emes and probably his pupil, John Webb.

This was an issue that clearly troubled Browne for many years: one of his rare parliamentary speeches was in favour of compelling absent clergy to pay for replacement curates.

In 1802 she died and, the following year, he married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Boddington, a notorious apologist for the slave trade.

The chancel and nave were reconstructed without division, under a single pitched roof, while a tower stood at the western end, above the entrance.

He opened the Dingle to visitors for the first time and groups of working people began to travel out from the industrial towns to walk in it.

Thereafter, even relatively good times did nothing to raise employment, as farm amalgamations, improved crops and techniques, and mechanisation reduced the need for labour.

She was distinguished surgeon at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, and is one of the eponyms of the Dix–Hallpike test for a benign paroxysmal positional vertigo.

After considerable debate, it was taken on by the Cornelius Trust, an evangelical military charity,[31] and run as a holiday home, until being sold for a private residence in 2005.

[32] At about the same time as the ecclesiastical parish was amalgamated, the much decayed Hall and estate were sold to John Swire and Sons,[33] a huge property, finance shipping and airline conglomerate, in whose hands it remains.

Despite the growth and changes in its role, the village retains a good deal of its old and picturesque appearance, which makes it a visitor attraction still.

The village and the area to its north stand on Upper Mottled Sandstone, a Triassic deposit found in many parts of the West Midlands.

It is very evident in the Dingle, along the Snowdon Brook, where there are outcrops, cliffs and caves, artfully exposed and enhanced in the 18th century landscaping of the valley.

The eastern side of the parish lies on boulder clay, sand and gravel, or till, glacial deposits from the ice ages.

Historically, the most important road ran south from Beckbury and turned sharply at Badger to run east to Pattingham.

This has now been reshaped so that the priority lies with traffic turning south to Stableford, where the minor road joins a B-road connecting Telford with the Black Country.

The First Series of the Ordnance Survey[38] shows that until Victorian times a road also used to run across the Dingle directly to Ackleton, but this has dwindled into a footpath.

Before the merger, Badger was part of Bridgnorth District from 1974 to 2009, in a two-tier system with the County Council as the top tier.

This has a long history and originated in the old parish vestry, although civil and ecclesiastical functions were separated in the Victorian period.

Although it has undergone periods of decay, it is now fairly accessible, with paths easily passable in dry weather and a new bridge above the Upper Pool making circular walks feasible.