At the time of the Domesday survey, Rotelingehope was a manor of two hides, which were waste, and was held by Robert fitz Corbet of Earl Roger de Montgomery.

Robert fitz Corbet was a younger brother of Roger, the builder of Caus Castle; he left two daughters, his heirs, Sibil (or Adela), and Alice.

Before 1209 Ratlinghope was acquired by Walter Corbet, an Augustine Canon, and a relative of Prince Llewelyn ap Iorwerth, who gave him a letter of protection.

Nothing is known of its history, but at the dissolution there was a Prior and 29 Canons; and the possessions of the Priory, valued at £5 11s 1½d per annum, were sold in May 1546 to Robert Longe, a member of the Mercers Guild of the City of London.

There was a church at Stitt in the reign of Henry II, but after the dissolution of Haughmond Abbey nothing more is heard of it, and its district[clarification needed] with Gatten was annexed to the parish of Ratlinghope.

At the start of the 20th century, W. E. M. Hulton-Harrop was lord of the manor of Gatten, which he inherited in 1866 from his maternal grandfather, Jonah Harrop[3] On 29 January 1865, the Rector of Woolstaston, the Rev.

Edmund Donald Carr, was walking from Ratlinghope to a second Sunday evening service at another church when he was caught in a blizzard, lost for 22 hours, snow-blinded and almost died.