LILLESHALL: Geographical and Historical information from the year 1824.

"LILLESHALL, a parish in the Newport division of the hundred of Bradford South, a vicarage discharged, in the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield, the deanery of Newport, and archdeaconry of Salop. 519 houses, 3,143 inhabitants. 3 miles southwest of Newport.

Near the village of Lilleshall, in a solitary, and retired situation, and partly surrounded with wood, may be seen the ruins of Lilleshall abbey. A considerable part of the church which was attached to the abbey, remains. The great entrance on the west is a fine Norman arch, richly recessed with ribs, and running foliage. Of the church, the doors and windows are all that remain, the pillars and arches of the nave and transept having been entirely destroyed; but from that portion which has escaped the ravages of time, some idea may be formed of the original architecture. The south door, by which a communication was formed with the cloister, is, doubtless, one of the most highly ornamented Norman arches in the kingdom. A semicircular arch, overspread with ornaments peculiar to the Saxon and earliest Norman buildings, is supported by clusters of slender shafts, some of which are spiral; and others covered with lozenge work, having the intermediate spaces embellished with mouldings. The north and south windows of the choir are narrow, plain, and round headed but the east window is large, and has a beautiful pointed arch of the architecture of the fourteenth century, within which are some remains of tracery. The area of the cloister which has been converted into a farm yard, adjoins the south side of the nave. A fine Norman arch which formed the entrance of the chapter house was lately standing, and some scattered portions of other apartments remain. The walls of the refectory are now a farm house. The boundary wall of the precinct may be traced to a considerable distance from the abbey. The church, which was cruciform, and probably had two towers, one in the centre, and the other at the west end, measured in length 228 feet,- the breadth of the nave 36 feet. The stalls of the choir were, at the dissolution, removed to the collegiate church of Wolverhampton, where they in part remain. The abbey and its estate are now the property of the Marquess of Stafford.

The revenues of Lilleshall abbey at the time of the dissolution, in the reign of Henry the eighth, were rated by the commissioners at £229 3s. 1½d.; about £2,260 of our money."

" MUXTON and DONNINGTON, a township in the parish of Lilleshall, and in the Newport division of the hundred of Bradford, South. Muxton is 3½ miles, and Donnington 4 miles south-west of Newport."

[Transcribed information from A Gazetteer of Shropshire - T Gregory - 1824](unless otherwise stated)

[Description(s) transcribed by Mel Lockie ©2015]