Preston upon the Weald Moors, Shropshire Family History Guide

Preston upon the Weald Moors is an Ancient Parish in the county of Shropshire.

Alternative names: Preston upon the Wild Moors, Preston

Parish church: St. Lawrence

Parish registers begin: 1693

Nonconformists include: Primitive Methodist

Table of Contents

Parishes adjacent to Preston upon the Weald Moors

Historical Descriptions

The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870

PRESTON-UPON-THE-WILD-MOORS, a parish in Wellington district, Salop; on the Shropshire canal, 2 miles W N W of Donnington r. station, and 3 NE of Wellington. Post-town, Wellington, Salop. Acres, 1,057. Real property, £1,672. Pop., 228. Houses, 34. The property is divided among a few. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Lichfield. Value, £198. Patron, alternately Preston Hospital and Col. Charton. The church is good. Preston Hospital here was founded in 1716, by Lady Herbert; is a quadrangle, with accommodation for 28 widows and 20 girls, and with a chapel and a school; and has an endowed income of £1,757.

Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].

Shropshire Gazetteer 1824

Preston; or Preston upon the Wildmores or Wildmoors. A parish in the Newport division of the hundred of Bradford, South, a chapel or rectory discharged, in the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield, the deanery of Newport, and archdeaconry of Salop. 50 houses, 209 inhabitants. 5 miles south-west of Newport.

Source: The Shropshire Gazetteer, with an Appendix, including a Survey of the County and Valuable Miscellaneous Information, with Plates. Printed and Published by T. Gregory, Wem, 1824

A Topographical Dictionary of England 1848

PRESTON-upon-the-Wild-Moors (St. Lawrence), a parish, in the union of Wellington, Wellington division of the hundred of South Bradford, N. division of Salop, 3½ miles (N. E. by N.) from Wellington; containing 247 inhabitants. It comprises 882a. 3r. 26p., in equal portions of arable and pasture. The village is on the margin of what must anciently have been a very extensive morass, but the land is now well drained. The living is a discharged rectory, valued in the king’s books at £3; net income, £198; patrons, the Trustees of Preston Hospital, for two turns, and St. John Charlton, Esq., (to whom a moiety of the rectorial tithes belongs) for one turn. The church is a very plain edifice, erected about a century since. A noble hospital for widows, and for the instruction of twenty girls, was erected and endowed in the early part of the last century, under the will of Lady Catherine Herbert, who in 1716 bequeathed £6000 for that purpose. Her brother, also, Lord Torrington, in 1718 devised an estate in Preston towards its support, and £1000 towards its erection; and the funds were still further augmented by the Earl of Montrath, who in 1802 bequeathed £4000 for the increase of the widow’s pensions. The present revenue is £1589 per annum. The building originally formed three sides of a square, with a hall in the centre, used as a chapel and school; but in 1827 wings were erected, so as to afford accommodation for eight more widows.

Source: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis 1848