History of Shropshire
The Coalbrookdale area of the county is designated "the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution", due to significant technological developments that happened there.
However, the Normans who ruled England after 1066 found both "Scrobbesbyrig" and "Scrobbesbyrigscir" difficult to pronounce so they softened them to "Salopesberia" and "Salopescira".
The name was never popular, with Ludlow MP Sir Jasper More raising an amendment to the 1972 Local Government Bill to rename the county "Shropshire"[1] – at the time the council itself opposed the change, although later, in 1980, would exercise its power to legally change the name of the county.
[4] The county has lost minor tracts of land in a few places, notably north of Tenbury Wells to Worcestershire, and near Leintwardine to Herefordshire.
[5][6] The entire area of modern Shropshire was included within the territory of the Celtic Cornovii tribe, whose capital was the Wrekin hill fort.
[8] Following the collapse of the Romano-British administration, the Cornovii territory may have become part of the Kingdom of Powys, but its status is obscure.
Twelfth century Welsh historian Giraldus Cambrensis associated Pengwern with Shrewsbury, but its location is uncertain.
)[11] In the 9th and 10th centuries the district was frequently overrun by the Danes, who in 874 destroyed the famous priory of Wenlock, said to have been founded by St Milburga, granddaughter of King Penda of Mercia, and in 896 wintered at Quatford.
[citation needed] Thirteen years before the Norman Conquest, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relates that in 1053 the Welshmen slew a great many of the English wardens at Westbury, and in that year Harold ordered that any Welshman found beyond Offa's Dyke within the English pale should have his right hand cut off.
[12] Earl Godwin, Sweyn, Harold, Queen Edith, Edward the Confessor and Edwin and Morcar are all mentioned in the Domesday Survey as having held lands in the county shortly before or during the Norman Conquest.
[12] After the Norman Conquest of 1066 the principal estates in Shropshire were all bestowed on Norman proprietors, pre-eminent among whom is Roger de Montgomerie, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, whose son Robert de Bellesme forfeited his possessions for rebelling against Henry I, when the latter bestowed the Earldom on his Queen Matilda for life.
[11] The principal landholders at the time of the Domesday Survey were the Bishop of Chester, the Bishop of Hereford, the church of St Remigius, Earl Roger, Osbern Fitz-Richard, Ralph de Mortimer, Roger de Laci, Hugh Lasne and Nicholas Medicus.
The family of Le Strange owned large estates in Shropshire after the Conquest, and Fulk Lestrange claimed the right of holding pleas of the crown in Wrockworthyn in 1292.
[12] The constant necessity of defending their territories against the Welsh prompted the Norman lords of Shropshire to such activity in castle-building that out of 186 castles in England no less than 32 are in this county.
[11] The early political history of Shropshire is largely concerned with the constant incursions and depredations of the Welsh from across the border.
[12] Apart from the border warfare in which they were constantly engaged, the great Shropshire lords were actively concerned in the more national struggles.
Shrewsbury Castle was garrisoned for the empress Maud by William Fitz-Alan in 1138, but was captured by King Stephen in the same year.
Among the Norman religious foundations were:[11] Hundreds in England had various judicial, fiscal and other local government functions, their importance gradually declining from the end of manorialism to the latter part of the 19th century.
The fifteen Shropshire hundreds mentioned in the Domesday Survey were entirely rearranged in the 12th century, particularly during the 1100-1135 reign of King Henry I, and only Overs, Shrewsbury and Condover retained their original names.
They lost their remaining administrative and judicial functions in the mid-to-late 19th century, with the last aspects removed from them in 1895 with the Local Government Act 1894.
That portion of the county in the Hereford diocese, the archdeaconry of Shropshire, included the deaneries of Burford, Stottesdon, Ludlow, Pontesbury, Clun and Wenlock; and that portion in the Coventry and Lichfield diocese, the archdeaconry of Salop, the deaneries of Salop and Newport.
The archdeaconry of Salop, now entirely in the Lichfield diocese, includes the deaneries of Edgmond, Ellesmere, Hodnet, Shifnal, Shrewsbury, Wem, Whitchurch and Wrockwardine.
[11] Certain parishes in Montgomeryshire, namely Churchstoke, Hyssington,[16] Leighton and Trelystan,[citation needed] chose to remain in the Church of England On the outbreak of the Civil War of the 17th century the Shropshire gentry for the most part declared for the King, who visited Shrewsbury in 1642 and received valuable contributions in plate and money from the inhabitants.
Shrewsbury was forced to surrender in 1645, and the royalist strongholds of Ludlow and Bridgnorth were captured in 1646, the latter after a four weeks' siege, during which the governor burnt part of the town for defence against Parliamentary troops.
[17] Shropshire is the "geological capital" of the UK, as just about every rock type in Northern Europe is found within its borders, as are coal, lead, copper and iron ore deposits.
Coalbrookdale, a small area of the Gorge, has been claimed as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, because of Abraham Darby I's development of coke-smelting and ironfounding there in the early 18th century.
