SPOONLEY,
a small township two miles N. from Market Drayton, at the census of 1841 contained 12 houses and 82 inhabitants, the acres of which are included in the return of Adderley. Rateable value, £1,421. 1s. Richard Corbet, Esq., is owner of the whole township, and lord of the manor. The poor of this township participate in the benefit of the charities noticed with Adderley. The principal residents are John Hudson, farmer, Castle Hill; William Lewis, farmer; Thomas Mulliner, farmer; and Richard Swan, farmer.
SHAVINGTON, OR THE MORREY,
is a township four miles N.W. from Market Drayton, partly in this county and partly in that of Cheshire, situated on the northern verge of Shropshire. In 1841 there were three houses and 25 inhabitants returned as within the bounds of this county, and in the parish of Adderley. Rateable value £1,541. 9s.; the acres are given with the parish. The Earl of Kilmorey is owner of the land, and lord of the manor, and occasionally resides at Shavington Hall—a spacious and elegant mansion of brick, surrounded with a park richly wooded, and beautifully adorned with sylvan beauty, comprising upwards of fifteen hundred acres. The noble owner enlarged the park, and began to enclose the whole with a brick wall several years ago—upwards of five miles of the wall has already been built; the park is about seven miles in circumference.
Directory.—The Earl of Kilmorey, Shavington Hall; John Gregory, Esq., steward, Shavington Hall; James Lunt, farmer, The Morrey; and Richard Vernon, farmer, The Morrey.
CHESWARDINE
is a parish and village delightfully situated near the N.E. verge of the county, four miles S.S.E. from Market Drayton. The parish comprehends the townships of Cheswardine, Chipnall, Goldstone, Sambrook, and Sowdley, and contains 5,723a. 3r. 4p. of land. In 1801 there was a population of 628 souls; 1830, 1051, and in 1841, 1015. The township of Cheswardine contains 1,715a. 3r. 10p. of land, and in 1841 had 71 houses and 367 inhabitants. Rateable value, £2,989. 10s. 9d. In the time of King Henry II. Cheswardine was held by John L’Estrange by knight’s service, and in the 32nd of Edward I. Roger L’Estrange had the grant of a market to be held on a Monday, and a fair on the eve, the day, and the day after the translation of St. Swithin. Sir John Mainwaring, knight, was keeper of the park of Cheswarthyn in the 13th of Edward IV. The church is an ancient structure, dedicated to St. Swithin, and consists of nave, chancel, and side aisles, with a tower, in which are six musical bells, which were put up, and also a new clock, about two years ago; from the summit of the tower a most extensive and beautiful prospect of the country is seen. The clock and the bells were purchased with money raised by voluntary subscriptions, and the gallery on the west side of the church was erected at the joint expense of John Butter, of Sowdley Park; William Butter, of Chipnall, and Richard Meeson, of Little Sowdley. There is a mural tablet in memory of the Rev. Samuel Orpe, who was vicar of this parish for 56 years; he died in 1724, aged 86 years. A small memorial of brass remembers Gabriel Lloyd, who died in the year 1623, and another brass plate states that Richard Jervis died in the year 1688. The living is a vicarage valued in the king’s book at £5. 6s. 8d., now returned at £260, in the patronage of T. Smallwood, Esq.; the Rev. Charles Miller is the officiating curate. This church was anciently held by the abbot of Haughmond, having been given to the Abbey by John L’Estrange in the time of Henry II. He also gave to the abbey the mill at Cheswarthyn, with the appurtenances. Queen Elizabeth, in the 26th of her reign, devised the tithes of the parish to Richard Corbet, Esq. On the western verge of the parish there is an open common, covering an area of about 100 acres. The Shropshire Union Canal intersects the parish, taking its course through some deep cuttings about a mile west from the church; on the banks of the canal there is a wharf called the Goldstone Wharf. The National School for boys was built in 1838; there is also a girl’s school, which was erected in 1738.
Charities.—The girls’ school was originally built by Richard Smithiman, and in 1738 it was rebuilt by the parishioners.
Richard Meeson, in 1712, left the yearly sum of £4, to be applied by the ministers and churchwardens of the parish, as an additional salary to the schoolmaster there, for instructing four poor boys in the English tongue, for so many years as the minister and churchwardens should think fit.
John Sawdley left to the poor of this parish £100. The churchwardens have been in possession of several closes at Foxbrook, in the parish of Dilhorne, in Staffordshire, from the year 1721. Altogether there are about ten acres, and it would appear from entries in the churchwarden’s book, that this property was purchased with the legacy above mentioned, but the purchase deeds are not now in the possession of the parishioners. The land is let at a yearly rent of £12.