EYTON UPON THE WEALD MOORS
EYTON upon the Weald Moors lies 4 km. north of
Wellington, 1 km. east of the Wellington-Crudgington road. The civil parish contains 578 ha.
(1,428 a.) (fn. 12) but its compact shape by no means
corresponds to that of the ancient parish which
contained 1,232 a. (499 ha.) in two townships 4
km. apart: 782 a. in the township of Eyton, where
land in Eyton and Wellington parishes lay intermixed, and 450 a. in two detached portions
known as the Hoo (81 a.) and Hortonwood (369
a.), which together constituted Hortonwood
township. (fn. 13) This article treats the history of the
parish, manor, and township of Eyton and the
pre-industrial history of Hortonwood township.
Aspects of the later history of Hortonwood are
covered under Wrockwardine Wood. (fn. 14)
In 1882 Eyton township was a compact block of
land containing 1,059 a. (429 ha.) (fn. 15) on the southern edge of the formerly fen-like Weald Moors. It
was defined on the west by field boundaries, on
the south by the ancient Newport-Shrewsbury
road, and on the east by a watercourse running
down to the Weald Moors. The northern boundary followed ditches laid out on the inclosure and
drainage of the Weald Moors in the early 19th
century. Before inclosure, boundaries in the
Moors were complicated by the existence of areas
intercommoned by a number of adjacent communities, and clear-cut boundaries between
townships probably crystallized at a late date. The
boundaries between Eyton and neighbouring
estates required clarification in the 1230s, and
disputes over common rights in that part of the
Weald Moors continued into the late 16th and
early 17th century. (fn. 16)
By the late 18th century the township was
divided in a pattern of great complexity (fn. 17) between
the ancient parishes of Eyton (782 a.) and Wellington (277 a.). (fn. 18) It is not clear when the territorial division occurred: in 1635 Sir Philip Eyton,
owner of the whole township, paid two thirds of
his tithe to Eyton and one third to Wellington but
that need not imply that the township was so
divided on the ground. (fn. 19) By 1769 the territory of
each parish could be mapped and was settled in
that year by the erection of merestones where land
in one parish lay open to that in the other. (fn. 20) Some
boundaries however followed the Shrewsbury
Canal, a fact suggesting that boundaries were
altered after it crossed the township in 1794. (fn. 21) The
pattern was simplified in 1883-4 when the detached portions of Wellington and Eyton parishes
were absorbed into surrounding or adjoining
parishes. (fn. 22) Nevertheless substantial portions in
the south-east part of the township remained in
Wellington parish (from 1894 Wellington Rural
civil parish, from 1898 Hadley C.P.) until they
were transferred, together with land formerly in
Wappenshall township, to Eyton C.P. in 1905. (fn. 23)
The civil parish had been further enlarged in 1884
by the transfer of Wrockwardine moor from
Wrockwardine parish, (fn. 24) and in 1934 Eyton C.P.
received part of Dothill township from Hadley
and Wellington Rural C.P.s. (fn. 25)
Eyton township lies on glacial deposits overlying the Upper Coal Measures and Triassic
sandstone on the northern edge of the east Shropshire coalfield. The village lies at the junction
between areas of contrasting drift material, freedrained fluvio-glacial sands and gravels forming
the higher land in the south and west of the
township, and wetter lake clay giving way to the
peat-filled Weald Moors in the north. (fn. 26) Before the
drainage of the Weald Moors in the early 19th
century the distinction was reflected in contrasting patterns of land use, cultivated land being
restricted to the drier ground south and west of
the village. The position of the village on the edge
of the higher land gives it the island-like appearance recorded in its name. (fn. 27)
Eyton Upon The Weald moors township 1826
Eyton village consists of a scatter of houses
along the road between the church and Eyton
Hall. The number of dwellings appears to have
dwindled since the mid 18th century. (fn. 28) Most of
the present buildings are of brick and date from
the late 18th or the 19th century, although 17thcentury timber-framed construction survives in
the School House. The township contains two
outlying farmsteads: Shawbirch, which is recorded from c. 1680, (fn. 29) and Eyton Farm, the home
farm of the Eyton Hall estate, built between c.
1785 and c. 1805. (fn. 30)
The community at Eyton has never been large.
In 1086 there were 4 oxherds on the demesne, 2
villeins, and 1 bordar; (fn. 31) in 1563 there were 6
households (fn. 32) and in 1587 a total of 11 tenants in
the township. (fn. 33) In 1672 c. 23 householders paid
hearth tax (fn. 34) and in 1776 the township contained 18
tenements. (fn. 35) In 1841 the whole township contained 120 inhabitants in 25 households (fn. 36) and by
1861 the population had risen to 165, of which the
Eyton Hall household accounted for 34. (fn. 37) The
civil parish of Eyton (enlarged in 1905) contained
184 inhabitants in 1911; thereafter the population
declined to 92 in 1971. (fn. 38)
The township was bounded on the south, and
in part on the west, by major roads that were
turnpiked in 1726. (fn. 39) Two lanes formerly led into
the village: one, known as Bratton Way in 1769,
left the Wellington-Crudgington road near
Wheelwright Cottage (now Denwood), the other
left the old Newport-Shrewsbury road near
Shawbirch to enter the village at its southern
end. (fn. 40) In 1807 both lanes were closed and the
present road to the village, following the line of
Bratton brook, was built. (fn. 41) The Shrewsbury Canal was built across the township in 1794 between
Wappenshall junction and Long Lane wharf. (fn. 42) A
lock-keeper's cottage was built near Eyton mill,
where the occupation road from the village to the
Weald Moors crossed the canal.
The ready supply of coal afforded by the canal
led one of the 19th-century squires, probably T.
C. Eyton (d. 1880), to build a gas plant near
Eyton mill to provide domestic lighting for the
village. The works was operating by 1871 but
ceased to function during the 1880s. (fn. 43) For water
supply the village relied on private boreholes until
a piped supply was provided c. 1960. (fn. 44)
In the 19th century the township's social life
was dominated by the Eyton family. A cricket
club, one of the earliest in the county, flourished
at Eyton from c. 1839 to 1853 under the patronage
of Thomas Eyton, the 'father of Shropshire
cricket'. (fn. 45) He and his son, T. C. Eyton, were
moving forces in the short-lived Wrockwardine
and Eyton Benefit Society, which was founded in
1840 but had ceased by 1842. (fn. 46) A lodge of Odd
Fellows (Manchester Unity) in 1871-2 probably
had Bratton members too. (fn. 47) In 1898 the village
had a clothing club, and a reading room was open
two evenings a week in winter. (fn. 48) During the 1950s
Eyton Hall, then uninhabited, was used for village gatherings, but in 1967 the cedar-clad village
hall was built on land given to the village by Capt.
A. C. Eyton (d. 1954). (fn. 49)
Hortonwood township consisted of two blocks
of land containing in all 450 a., lying 4 km. east of
Eyton township between Preston upon the Weald
Moors and Wrockwardine Wood. The larger portion (369 a.) contained part of the straggling
roadside settlement of Trench and lay north of the
Wellington-Newport road, which formed its
southern boundary. The smaller portion, an irregularly shaped block of 81 a. known as the Hoo,
lay to the north. (fn. 50)
The definition of what were probably parts of
the Domesday manor of Horton as the township
of Hortonwood in Eyton parish may have been a
long-drawn-out process, perhaps affected to some
degree by the connexions between Eyton and
Horton manors. (fn. 51) Part of the lordship of Horton,
near the Hoo, was certainly in Eyton parish by
1499. (fn. 52) In 1620 Sir Philip Eyton extended his
ownership of land in Horton and Horton's wood
(alias the Trench) (fn. 53) and by 1635, after some
years' woodland clearance in the area, (fn. 54) he claimed
Horton's wood and its tithes as belonging to
Eyton parish. That year Francis Charlton, laying
the ground for litigation, gathered part of the
tithes to make 'a title thereunto for the parish of
Wellington'. (fn. 55) Nevertheless Hortonwood was
firmly reckoned part of Eyton parish during the
18th and earlier 19th centuries, though in the
1820s some inhabitants of Trench Lane were
uncertain whether they belonged to the manor of
Horton or that of Wrockwardine. (fn. 56) In 1859 Hortonwood was included in the new ecclesiastical
parish of Wrockwardine Wood. (fn. 57) In 1884 the Hoo
was absorbed into Wellington (from 1894 Wellington Rural, from 1898 Hadley) C.P. and Hortonwood was transferred to Wrockwardine Wood
C.P. (fn. 58)
The township lies on boulder clay and fluvioglacial sands and gravels overlying the Upper
Coal Measures and Triassic sandstone, (fn. 59) the land
rising towards the south. Its name, consistently
given as Horton's wood from the 17th to the 19th
century, (fn. 60) suggests that it was an area of late
settlement resulting from woodland clearance,
and wooded areas survived in the early 17th
century. (fn. 61)
Settlement in Hortonwood township consisted
c. 1930 of a small agricultural hamlet at Hortonwood, single farmsteads at Trench Farm and
Trench Lodge (a new farmstead site occupied c.
1825), (fn. 62) and the ribbon of 19th- and early 20thcentury housing, in-filling between earlier small
farms and cottages, along the southern boundary
at Trench. During the mid 20th century the
farming landscape north of the railway was replaced by a new industrial landscape; in 1979 large
acreages were occupied by Trench Farm sewage
works (built 1904-5), (fn. 63) the Central Ordnance
Depot (begun 1938), (fn. 64) and Hortonwood industrial
estate (under construction).
In 1086 Horton (which probably included the
area later known as Hortonwood) was waste and
no population was recorded. (fn. 65) By 1587 there were
18 tenants on the Eyton family's estate in 'Hor
ton', but it is not known how many lived in
Horton's wood and how many in Horton (in
Wellington). (fn. 66) There were 15 cottagers and smallholders in Horton's wood in 1635. (fn. 67) The population of Hortonwood township had risen to 266 by
1841 and continued to grow, reaching 352 in
1891. (fn. 68)
Most of the 19th-century population lived along
Trench Lane, the Wellington-Newport road that
formed the township's southern boundary. A few
dwellings had been built along the north side of
Trench Lane by c. 1630 (fn. 69) and by 1772 the steadings of seven farms and smallholdings lay strung
out along the highway. (fn. 70) The growth of industry
during the 19th century resulted in a proliferation
of workers' cottages. In 1841 there were 44 households containing 211 inhabitants along the north
side of Trench Lane (fn. 71) and, with the mid-century
expansion of the iron industry in Donnington and
Oakengates, the population of Trench continued
to grow: the north side of the road contained 309
inhabitants in 1871. (fn. 72) In the rest of the township,
where settlement was scattered, the hamlet of
Hortonwood and cottages near the Hoo and Horton contained only 55 inhabitants in 1841. (fn. 73)
The Wellington-Newport road, where it
bounded the township on the south, was known c.
1630 as Trench Way and in the 18th century as
Trench Lane. (fn. 74) It was turnpiked in 1763. (fn. 75) The
Shropshire Union Railway was driven through
the southern part of the township in 1849 (fn. 76) with a
station at Trench Crossing. The line was closed to
passengers in 1964 (fn. 77) although the section through
Trench remained in use to serve private sidings in
Donnington. (fn. 78)
An aleseller was licensed in Eyton parish in
1614 (fn. 79) although it is not known whether he lived
in Eyton or Hortonwood. There is no later evidence of licensed premises in Eyton township
except the record of an innkeeper living at Shawbirch in 1851. (fn. 80) Three alesellers were licensed at
Trench in the later 18th century but it is not
certain whether their premises lay in Hortonwood
or Wrockwardine Wood. The Duke of York,
Trench, so known by 1823, was probably licensed
by 1800. (fn. 81) It was one of three public houses on the
north side of Trench Road (formerly Trench
Lane) in 1979. In 1871-2 there were two lodges of
Odd Fellows (Manchester Unity) in Trench:
'Miners' Glory' with 21 members, 'Marquis of
Stafford' with 270. Trench Bowling Club had a
green near the western end of the former
township in 1979, and at the eastern end there was
a T.A.V.R. Centre, opened in 1964. (fn. 82)