Church Preen, Shropshire
Historical Description
Church-Preen, a village and a parish in Salop, 3 miles W of Presthope station on the Wellington and Craven Arms branch of the G.W.R., and 6 SW of Much Wenlock. Post town, Leebotwood, under Shrewsbury; money order and telegraph office, Much Wenlock. Acreage, 1174; population, 113. Church-Preen manor-house is a modern Tudor mansion, built in 1872 on the site of a Cluniac monastery. It is situated in an extensive park. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Hereford; gross value, £60. The church is ancient, and was originally connected with Wenlock Abbey. It contains a carved oak pulpit of the year 1641, and was restored in 1866.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
Registration district | Atcham | 1837 - 1935 |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
Findmypast, in association with the Shropshire Archives have the Baptisms, Banns, Marriages, and Burials online for Church Preen
The register dates from the year 1680.
Churches
Church of England
St. John the Baptist (parish church)
The church of St. John the Baptist is an ancient edifice of stone in the Early English style and of a singular form, being 70 feet long by only 12½ feet wide; it was the chapel of the Priory of Preen, a cell of the Abbey of Wenlock, and consists of chancel, nave, north porch and a western turret containing 2 bells, one of which is of pre-Reformation date: in 1866 the church was substantially restored and the west end re-built, when all the internal fittings, except the Jacobean pulpit and reading-desk, which bear the date 1641, were renewed: the stained east window is a memorial, erected in 1867 by the then patron, Arthur Sparrow esq. to his father, William Hanbury Sparrow, who died Jan. 1867: on the north side are memorial windows to Arthur William Hanbury Sparrow. who died Oct. 1878; and to Ruth, wife of Arthur Sparrow, d. June, 1888: a handsome communion cloth was presented to the church in 1885 by A. Sparrow esq. and others later by Mrs. Cecil Sparrow: the west window is a memorial to Arthur Sparrow, who died in 1898: the church plate includes a 15th century silver chalice and paten: there are 100 sittings: in the churchyard is a large and ancient yew tree, with a girth at the base of 40 feet and at 7 feet from the ground of 23.3 feet.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
For births, marriages, and deaths in Church Preen from 1837 to 1935 you should search for the Atcham Registration District.
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Shropshire (Salop) is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Church Preen are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Shropshire newspapers online:
- Shrewsbury Chronicle
- Wellington Journal
- Eddowes's Journal, and General Advertiser for Shropshire, and the Principality of Wales
- Ludlow Advertiser
- Salopian Journal
Visitations Heraldic
The Visitation of Shropshire, 1623 is available on the Heraldry page.