Shrawardine is a small village and former

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

, now in the parish of Montford, in the

Shropshire Shropshire (; abbreviated SalopAlso used officially as the name of the county from 1974–1980. The demonym for inhabitants of the county "Salopian" derives from this name.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West M ...

district, in the ceremonial county of

, England. It is outside

Shrewsbury Shrewsbury ( , ) is a market town and civil parish in Shropshire (district), Shropshire, England. It is sited on the River Severn, northwest of Wolverhampton, west of Telford, southeast of Wrexham and north of Hereford. At the 2021 United ...

.Raven, M. ''A Guide to Shropshire'', 2005, p.178 In 1931 the parish had a population of 176. On 1 April 1934 the parish was abolished and merged with Montford.

Etymology

Its name is locally pronounced ''Shray-den'', and was often spelt "Shraydon" in old documents;Vale, Edmund (1949) ''Shropshire'', London: Robert Hale, p.73 it is otherwise pronounced ''Shray-war-dine''. The placename originates from

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

''worðign'' "enclosed settlement" combined with either ''scraef'' "cave" or ''screawa'' "shrew", the latter used as a

byname An epithet (, ), also a byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) commonly accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a real or fictitious person, place, or thing. It is usually literally descriptive, as in Alfred the Great, Suleima ...

for an individual.Gelling, M. (2006) ''The Place-names of Shropshire, Part Five: The hundreds of Pimhill and Bradford North'', EPNS, p.112

Landmarks

The village's landmarks include Shrawardine Castle and St Mary's Church. The castle, known as Castell Isabella by the

Anglo-Normans The Anglo-Normans (, ) were the medieval ruling class in the Kingdom of England following the Norman Conquest. They were primarily a combination of Normans, Bretons, Flemings, French people, Frenchmen, Anglo-Saxons and Celtic Britons. Afte ...

, was built in the reign of

Henry I of England Henry I ( – 1 December 1135), also known as Henry Beauclerc, was King of England from 1100 to his death in 1135. He was the fourth son of William the Conqueror and was educated in Latin and the liberal arts. On William's death in 1087, Henr ...

, and dismantled during the

English Civil War The English Civil War or Great Rebellion was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Cavaliers, Royalists and Roundhead, Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of th ...

in 1645. It had been held since 1644 by the Royalist commander Sir William Vaughan, whose aggressive tactics earned him the nickname "the Devil of Shrawardine".Mangianello, S. ''The concise encyclopedia of the revolutions and wars of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 1639-1660'', Scarecrow, 2004, p.491

Little Shrawardine

The

River Severn The River Severn (, ), at long, is the longest river in Great Britain. It is also the river with the most voluminous flow of water by far in all of England and Wales, with an average flow rate of at Apperley, Gloucestershire. It rises in t ...

passes to the west of the village. On the other side of the river is a

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...

called Little Shrawardine. It lies within the civil parish of

Alberbury with Cardeston Alberbury with Cardeston is a civil parish in Shropshire, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 645 (though in 2005 the parish expanded with the annexation of half of the former Wollaston parish), increasing to 1,011 at th ...

Notable residents

Henry Bromley (died 1615) Sir Henry Bromley (1560 – 15 May 1615) was an English landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons of England, House of Commons at various times between 1584 and 1604. He was twice imprisoned for his political activities, the secon ...

, Elizabethan and Jacobean politician, owned Shrawardine Castle where he died. *Rev Dr

Nevil Maskelyne Nevil Maskelyne (; 6 October 1732 – 9 February 1811) was the fifth British Astronomer Royal. He held the office from 1765 to 1811. He was the first person to scientifically measure the mass of the planet Earth. He created '' The Nautical Al ...

FRS FRSE , the fifth

Astronomer Royal Astronomer Royal is a senior post in the Royal Households of the United Kingdom. There are two officers, the senior being the astronomer royal dating from 22 June 1675; the junior is the astronomer royal for Scotland dating from 1834. The Astro ...

, was Rector of the parish 1775 to 1782. * Jane Gray (stained glass artist), b.1931–d.2024, had a workshop in Shrawardine.Report on forthcoming auction of some of Gray's work.

References

External links