Lilleshall
Lilleshall is a village in Shropshire situated between the towns of Newport and Telford.
The village dates from Anglo-Saxon times and is mentioned in the Domesday Book.
In the twelfth century an Augustinian Abbey was founded the remains of which are protected by English Heritage. After the dissolution of the monasteries the estate was bought by a wealthy merchant named Leveson. The family became lords of Stafford and later the Dukes of Sutherland (as the Leveson-Gower family).
The village has a monument, cricket club, tennis club, the church of St. Chads and a bracken-covered hill named 'Lilleshall Hill'. The monument is a 70-foot high local landmark which stands atop of Lilleshall Hill. It was erected in honour of the Duke of Sutherland.
There was a lot of industrial activity surrounding Lilleshall in the past. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries coal and limestone was mined. This is reflected in the local road names with one road being called 'Limekiln Lane'. Due to the local mining, a way of linking two canals was needed. An inclined Plain was constructed to link the Donnington Wood canal and its Lilleshall branch. This is reflected in the local road name 'The Incline'.
Like many Shropshire villages, Lilleshall is surrounded on all sides by farmland. A local traditional is for local children to identify the boundaries between six or seven local farms around the village from the monument.
The Dukes of Sutherland was once one of the richest families in Britain and in the late 19th century they built a new residence, Lilleshall Hall which lies at the heart of a large estate and only one mile from the village. The Sutherland estate was sold off between 1915 and 1917 and the Hall was passed into state ownership. Today it is a National Sporting facility and was once the site of the Football Association Youth Academy. It is now the home of British gymnastics and Archery.
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