Hodnet, Shropshire Family History Guide

Hodnet is a large parish and village, situate on the main road from Shrewsbury to Market Drayton, in the diocese of Lichfield, archdeaconry of Salop, rural deanery of Hodnet, and hundred of Bradford North. It lies thirteen miles North-East from Shrewsbury, and six from Market Drayton. It comprises the townships of Hodnet, Wollerton, Marchamley, Weston-under-Red Castle, Peplow, Hawkstone, Kenstone, Lostford, Little Bolas, and Hopton and Espley. Its area is 11,595 acres, and the population in 1901 was 1,509 in the civil parish and 1,731 in the ecclesiastical parish. The village of Hodnet is remarkably picturesque, and it contains some interesting black and white houses.

Parish church:

Parish registers begin: 1656

Nonconformists include: Independent/Congregational, Primitive Methodist, and Wesleyan Methodist.

Adjacent Parishes

Parish History

Hodnet

The Parliamentary Gazetteer of England and Wales 1851

Hodnet, a parish in Drayton division, North Bradford hund., union of Market-Drayton, county of Salop; 5½ miles south-west of Market-Drayton, on the river Tern. It includes the chapelry of Weston and Wexhill-under-Red-castle. Living, a rectory with the curacy of Weston, in the archd. of Salop, and dio. of Lichfield; rated at £26 0s. 10d.; gross income £2,336; nett income £1,884. Patrons, in 1835, the executors of Richard Heber, Esq. Here are 2 daily and 4 day and Sunday schools. An old school in the churchyard was pulled down in 1814, and a new school and school-house erected, in the following year, in a more convenient situation, chiefly at the expense of Richard Heber, Esq. This school is endowed with £8 per annum, the interest of £200 bequeathed by Mrs. Sarah Price for the support of a free school. The master pays £1 1s. annually to the churchwardens as the interest of £25, given by Sir A. Corbet to the poor, but expended in building the school. Other charities, in 1830, £117 8s. 6d. per annum, principally arising from numerous gifts presented by the Hill family to the poor of Hodnet. Poor rates, in 1838, £998 16s. Fairs, though unimportant ones, are held here on 15th May and 20th October. Acres 13,920. Houses 377. A. P. £17,651. Pop., in 1801, 1,386; in 1831, 2,097.

Source: The Parliamentary Gazetteer of England and Wales; A Fullarton & Co. Glasgow; 1851

Gregory Shropshire Gazetteer 1824

Hodnet. A parish in the Drayton division of the hundred of Bradford, North. A rectory in charge, in the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield, the deanery of Newport, and archdeaconry of Salop. 360 houses, 2,117 inhabitants. 6 miles east of Wem. See appendix. Hodnet is the seat of Richard Heber, Esq., M. P. for Oxford, whose brother, the present bishop of Calcutta, was long the rector of this parish.

A man whom but to name is to give him the highest praise; not more conspicuous for his elevated rank in the church, than for his virtue and piety, his erudition and his refinement, – and now placed in a situation, which, connected with his talents and his disposition, justifies the brightest hopes of the friends of religion and of human nature. His lordship even in very early life gave to the world a specimen of his exquisite still in the Greek language, and of his cultivated taste, in his translation of some of the odes of Pindar.