[citation needed] Bury Walls, an Iron Age hillfort indicates the earliest known substantial occupation of the area.

In 1227 Henry de Audley, Sheriff of Shropshire and Staffordshire, built a sandstone castle on a natural outcrop of rock that was flanked on all sides by wide valleys.

It is there said that 'Maud, or Matilde, wife of William the Conqueror, gave to John de Audley and to his heirs, the lands about Red Castle, in the county of Salop, for certain services done by him to the state."

At that time, the senior house in the Hawkstone manor was still the Red Castle, and this was recorded as being a ruin when Leland[6] visited in around 1540.

Hawkstone Park as understood today is 100 acres (40 ha) of follies and landscaped parkland grounds and rocky outcrops, based around the Red Castle, and this landscape garden was the output of a further development phase associated with Richard Hill of Hawkstone (1655-1727), who was a tutor to the family of Robert Boyle.

It was restored in the late 19th century: this included the chancel, the gabled timber porch, stained glass, pews and octagonal font.

[7] In 1968 a farmer named John James held a woman hostage in a derelict cottage just north of the village.

The siege ended when the hostage threw James's shotgun out of a window, which allowed soldiers and police to storm the cottage.

Maynard's Farm Shop is located close by and is mentioned in Rick Stein's Food Heroes of Britain.

[14] The landscape was used to represent parts of Narnia in the BBC's TV adaptation of C. S. Lewis's books in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in1988 and Prince Caspian a year later.