GROWTH OF SETTLEMENT.
In the Middle
Ages the only centres of population were Little
Wenlock, the manorial and ecclesiastical centre,
and Huntington, always a smaller place. Eight
inhabitants were recorded in 1086. (fn. 26) By the 1320s
there were 42 tenants (fn. 27) but in 1540 only 24; (fn. 28) in
both periods undertenants seem to have gone
unrecorded. In 1642 the protestation was taken by
all 82 men in the parish who were over 18. In 1660
there were 147 poll-tax payers, 31 of them at
Huntington, (fn. 29) and 174 adult inhabitants were
returned in 1676. (fn. 30) In the 18th century workers'
cottages were built in brick in the industrial parts
of the parish. The population, 980 in 1801, fell to
941 by 1811, (fn. 31) perhaps because of a reduction of
coalmining in the parish. (fn. 32) The opening of the
Lawley ironworks in 1822 (fn. 33) and the expansion of
coalmining in neighbouring parishes (fn. 34) caused Little Wenlock's population to rise to 1,091 by 1841,
when there were 202 inhabited houses. (fn. 35) There
was a gradual decline 1841-61. A sharp drop (988
to 783) 1861-71 was probably due to the closure
of Lawley ironworks. (fn. 36) Further industrial closures
in neighbouring parishes (fn. 37) and agricultural depression combined to cause large-scale emigration
from the parish between 1871 and 1891, when the
population fell to 420. It remained at that level for
sixty years or more. (fn. 38) The number of houses
halved 1841-91. (fn. 39) The unemployed who remained
suffered severe privation. (fn. 40) From the 1960s,
however, with the development of Dawley (later
Telford) new town on its boundaries, the parish
became an attractive rural home for middle-class
newcomers, whose influence on the character of
its buildings, though not on the size of its settlements, was marked.
Little Wenlock village occupies a south-east
spur of what was called Darrow Hill (c. 220
metres above O.D.) in the centre of the parish,
with extensive views south, east, and west. By
1727, and probably much earlier, its houses and
farms lay close together along the arms of a T
formed by the junction of the roads to Shrewsbury (west), Much Wenlock (south), and Wellington via Huntington (east). The church, rectory, and Old Hall (the former manor house) lay
at the end of the southern arm, on which stood
also the capital messuages of the Smitheman and
Warham estates. It therefore seems likely that the
village had grown from that single street. By the
later Middle Ages the outer ends of the eastern
and southern arms were linked by a curving lane,
called the Alley, along which by 1727 stood more
houses, (fn. 41) including a cruck-framed cottage (standing in 1983).
By 1980 the early 18th-century pattern had
hardly changed, though since the Second World
War there had been much in-filling with private
houses, and some of the old ones had been
lavishly improved. Private houses of good quality
had been built on the west, along Spout Lane,
ground (c. 220 metres above O.D.) in the north on
the upper Lyde brook. In 1727 it consisted of four
farms and some cottages, (fn. 43) about the same number of dwellings as were there in the early 14th (fn. 44)
and on the south, off Witchwell Lane. There was
a block of three council houses, and a group of old
people's bungalows had been provided.
16th- Century Little Wenlock
Huntington, existing by 1190, (fn. 42) stands on high
and early 16th (fn. 45) centuries. They were linked by an
irregular triangle of lanes, (fn. 46) through which the
brook ran. By 1839 a few houses had been added
southwards in Huntington Lane, (fn. 47) and by 1980
the buildings in that part included two modern
private houses. Huntington nevertheless remained a loosely knit hamlet rather than a village.
Of the small groups of workmen's and miners'
cottages that had been built by 1839 in the eastern
half of the parish, as at Coalmoor, Huntington
heath, Little Worth, Lawley Furnaces, and
Smalleyhill, (fn. 48) the most populous was probably
New Works, which had attained its full extent by
1798. (fn. 49) The cottages straggled along both sides of
the southern end of the lane to Arleston, where it
formed the western boundary of the parish's
northern arm. They included at least two brick
rows by 1798, which survived in 1980 though
thoroughly modernized. New Works changed little in the 19th and earlier 20th century, (fn. 50) but by
1980 there had been much recent modernization
and in-filling with small private houses and bungalows.