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PRIORSLEE REMEMBERED

THE UNFORGETTABLE MEMORIES OF PAST RESIDENTS by Allan Frost

This account reveals that FOREWORD community life in old Priorslee was a fascinating combination of elford has, from the time it agricultural and industrial co- first received its name in existence. T1968, seen the publication of During my research I have numerous local history books. been impressed by the hospitality, Initially, emphasis was given to enthusiasm and willingness to the Ironbridge Gorge; a commonly reveal even the smallest detail of held opinion was that Telford life as it was before Telford Development Corporation wished conurbation (it was never a ‘New to ignore, as far as possible, the Town’) was named in 1968. ALLAN FROST fact that most townships and A few people interviewed ************** villages in the conurbation had far either had very little to add to this Allan Frost was born in more interesting and much longer collection or they wished to histories. remain anonymous; their Wellington and has lived in In recent years, there has been comments form the Mixed Priorslee since 1986. something of a resurgence of Memories section of these notes. He began researching the history membership of voluntary groups Sincere thanks are due to those of the district now known as the whose sole aim is to rediscover who have lent me their treasured Telford conurbation over 50 and promote the fascinating photographs, other historic years ago and has written more histories of their own settlements documents and rare memorabilia, ... especially as they have been whatever condition they have than 30 books and numerous overlooked and effectively been in; they are all invaluable magazine articles. Founder unappreciated by a succession of records. chairman of Wellington History Telford & Wrekin councillors I hope you enjoy reading it as Group and a popular public apparently determined to continue much as I enjoyed listening to the speaker, he is often called upon to the blinkered precedent set by revelations of those whose provide historical and heritage Telford Development Corporation. memories are recorded here. information to councils, schools, colleges, Historic England and the Press as well as professional, amateur and family researchers. The recollections included here first appeared in Allan’s book Priorslee Remembered (ISBN 1872989020) published in 1993; this version, prepared for the Parish Council, has been improved by the inclusion of additional material. It is dedicated to the memory of those whose recollections are recorded in these pages. * * * * * * Priorslee Furnaces, c.1920s

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fire – there was no central heating I went to St Peter’s Church for DOLLY HARRIS in the school. The toilets were Sunday School in the morning, outside, and if you wanted to go then on to the church service you had to cross the yard, afterwards. Not a lot went on at whatever the weather. the church in those days. The Like other children at the time Vicarage was in the same road as we played with tops, hoops and the church, opposite the Priorslee skipping ropes. The hoops were Institute and next to the school. made of iron and rolled along Priorslee Institute, a wooden using a pot hook. We didn’t really hut, was in Church Road near to have any proper games at school: the Church and quite a few games, we were there to learn and learn like cricket and tennis, were we did! Not like today. Mind you, played in the grounds. Me and my we weren’t given any homework friend used to look in the hedges to do; conditions at home weren’t for all the lost tennis balls and really suitable for study. keep them for ourselves. The I remember my friend Rhoda, Institute was used for dinners and who was top of the class, helping all sorts of community activities. I me to do some sums during the think it had a bit of a library, but lesson: she passed the answers I’m not sure. along under the desks for me to Cricket was also played on a copy. She used to earn many a field below the Lion Inn, not far orothy ‘Dolly’ Harris (née sixpence that way! from where the Priorslee Hall Franks) was born on 7th June Mr Upton from St Georges was Lodge was. There was a large 1908 in Wellington Road, the headmaster – he was crippled mulberry tree by the field, the D up almost double, and he had a only one in the district, and my Donnington. She was fostered at eight to a Mr and Mrs Biddulph living in cane. If you talked in school he’d friends and I occasionally climbed St Georges and Hollinswood during give you six of the best. If we had the tree and threw the berries the years prior to her marriage to to hold our hand out to be beaten down to eat later. Isaac Harris, who died in 1991.She we sometimes whipped it away at Mr Wallace Tart, rather badly lived in a Duke of Sutherland cottage the last moment when the cane crippled, used to keep a little in Donnington for over 50 years. was coming down, but you wooden shop by the railway line couldn’t escape! below the Pigeon Box, and his PRIORSLEE SCHOOL was on Miss Mollineux, Mrs Turner house was on the other side of the the ground opposite and slightly and Mr Upton’s daughter were the road. His parents put him in the above the Sneds Hill Wesleyan teachers there, together with Mr shop to give him something to do. Methodist Chapel and between Price, also from St Georges; they His father was watchman at the Priorslee Road and Church Road. I were quite good. Priorslee Furnaces in later life after was there when the big strike was Mrs Corbett used to make soup he retired. (Mr Biddulph, one of on around 1920, before the for us schoolchildren; I can see her my foster parents, was also a General Strike of 1926. now, coming across the road with watchman at the furnaces.) The There used to be a big porch these enamel buckets and the split shop sold practically anything – where you put all your clothes in peas bobbing on the top. You had sweets (two ounces for a penny), and it had a big fire. In the winter a bowl of soup and a big lump of tea, sugar and all sorts of we all used to huddle around this bread for one penny. groceries.

Priorslee School, c.1900 Sneds Hill Methodist Chapel, demolished for housing, 1988

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The Teagues kept the Pigeon carts. They’d have a ‘chain horse’ school and before they got Box when I lived up at Priorslee. to help the main horse haul the married. They were expected to Later they went to keep the ‘Vic’ cart up the Hollinswood bank, and give up work altogether after next to Whiteford’s shop in after the cart had reached the top marriage. I remember that he was Oakengates. (My husband worked Mr Chetwood would unharness very tall and very thin, and rode a at Whiteford’s for about 16 years. the chain horse and give it a slap Douglas motorcycle. His knees When he left his wages were 42s to send it back, all on its own, to almost reached to his chin when 6d – about £2.12p – a week!) the field by the Priorslee furnaces he sat on it. Nellie Teague used to have a where they had a small coal depot. Obviously, I wasn’t allowed horse: we used to think they were Most houses had outside beyond the kitchen and it used to so well off for having this horse! I toilets, usually two-seaters shared fascinate me, looking up at all think they also had a farm not far between two families and with old these pheasants and other away down Teagues Lane which newspapers cut into rough creatures hanging from the ceiling, ran from the Priorslee Road to the squares to act as toilet paper. You and maggots dropping down from Woodhouse Pit. used to have to sing if you were in them! I can also remember lots of There were some old miners’ there to warn the unwary! If it was stone jars on the floor. They were barrack houses near the Pigeon dark we had to take a lantern or filled with flour and all sorts of Box. Some of the people living candle in with us. These toilets ingredients. The kitchens were there were called Leylands and weren’t connected to a sewage absolutely enormous. their son went to school with me. system, so the night soil men came I can remember when Mr When we lived at Hollinswood we in the hours of darkness to empty Freeston came to the Hall; Mr had to get our water for the wash- them out. Those were the days! McKinley kept it before Mr house at the back from a tap at the Looking back, the place was a Freeston. I never liked Mr roadside, each tap serving about bit of a tip because they didn’t Freeston, he was rather a hard 20 houses. Each family did their have dustbins then, so rubbish man. washing on different days to avoid was usually burned and the ashes There was a row of cottages in everyone being in there at the were scattered over the gardens. the village and I also had to run same time. I can still remember all There wasn’t really much to do errands to a Mr Green who lived the dolly tubs! Youngsters today apart from going to the Pictures – in one of the big houses near don’t know they’re born! the Grosvenor at Oakengates. I can there. He also had flitches and The milkman delivered milk remember it being built, and I can different things hanging up in his from a large can or churn from remember it being pulled down. kitchen, as well as maggots falling which he ladled it out into one of It’s a shame. The Oakengates down and crawling everywhere. I our large jugs. Town Hall (as was) in Market can’t see how they managed to eat Workers’ houses were lit with Street also used to be a cinema. anything like that in those days! candles or oil lamps and had a Seats there cost 2d and 9d I left Priorslee well over 60 coal fireplace. Coal was very cheap depending where you sat. years ago, but I can remember and often free to miners working I sometimes went to Priorslee Freeston Avenue being built. Mrs in the pits. I remember paying 3s Hall on errands for my employer Margerrison (the local chemist’s 6d – 17.5p – for a sack of coal and Champion Jones who lived at Ivy mother) lived in one of the 48 a sack of nutty slack. Nutty slack House. He had an important job at houses in the Long Row which was coal dust with small bits of the Lilleshall Company and I was demolished to make room for coal left in it. It was delivered by worked for him as a domestic them. The Cotton family (16 of Chetwood’s, a coalmerchant at servant and childminder. That was them altogether) lived in one of Hollinswood, on horsedrawn most girls did when they left the old two-bedroomed houses in

The old Post Office right of the Lion Inn Stone House, left of the Lion Inn

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the same row. Mrs Cotton had a also gave performances as the over the banks and came out by son who lost his wife, and I think magician ‘Professor Rockoe’. He the Greyhound pub before going she reared his two children as was killed as he walked home up Sneds Hill to the school. There well! Jack, the youngest son, was from the Lion Inn one night. His was a coal pit on those banks valet to Jack Hulbert, husband of brother took over the Lodge and (Pudleyhill Colliery) where the Dame Cicely Courtneidge, the became chauffeur to Mr Freeston. hole was covered only with some famous actress and musical Major Bishop lived in the big planks of wood. I used to drop performer. We thought we knew Red House at the back of the Lion, stones down the shafts and wait when Jack Cotton had been home near the entrance where visitors’ until I could hear them splashing because his mother, who was very cars for the Lion were kept. in the water at the bottom. I can tall, used to wear a different big Jones’ ran the wagonette remember there being an iron hat with flowing feathers, and we service into Oakengates and bucket full of coal halfway down all believed they had come straight Shifnal for shopping and I think the shaft. from Cicely. they stored the carts near the row There weren’t really all that Another group of houses called of houses now modernised and many houses in Priorslee when I Short Row ran off Long Row, and called Stable Row. Their horse was a girl. Just the ones in the they were demolished as well. may have been kept on a bit of village and the Square (the (Both Rows belonged to the ground not far from Tart’s shop in entrance was from a small road a groups of housing known Priorslee Road. few yards west of the Lion Inn) collectively as Snedshill Barracks.) There were some old railway where there were quite a few The old Post Office had double lines close by Stable Row which houses. The main road to Shifnal bay windows and was next to the went to the old Lawn Colliery. divided the two. The Stafford Pits Lion Inn. It wasn’t much of a The Woodhouse Pits were near were reached by going down the place, Post Offices often weren’t in the new Priors Lodge public Shifnal Road. those days, it had a little room at house, on the eastern edge of the Apparently there was once an the front where business was pools. We used to call one of the old Toll Gate further on down that conducted. Stone House, on the pools the ‘Rough Raz’, I don’t road, passed the Lodge but on the other side of the Lion Inn, was know why we called it that. (A other side. You can’t get down that owned, I believe, by the Lilleshall probable explanation is that the road now because of the factories Company and occupied at the field just south of the pool was and the lake. time by Mr Kenworthy, one of the once known as Rough Piece, so My friend and I used to go by Lilleshall Company’s managers. named on old tithe maps of the the Woodhouse Pits and down We used to go scrumping for area.) Deakin’s Lane (there was a big pears in his garden, and if he ever My husband’s brother Tom farm along there. I fancy it was caught us he gave us a good worked at Priorslee Furnaces. We Castle Farm owned by the talking to! used to watch the coke coming out Kelsalls.) until we came out on the During the early 1920s I think of the big ovens when we were Shifnal Road. The farm is the Lion Inn was run by a Mr Cliff. kids. I lived at Hollinswood for a underneath the lake now. You He was married to one of the while and had to pass them on the could go and help pick daughters from Lee’s Farm. way to school. Hodson’s had their blackcurrants for a three ha’pence I mentioned Priorslee Hall Bone Mill at Hollinswood. It later per pound weight. Lodge. This was at the end of the became a Maggot Factory and My husband once took me to long drive on the southern side of moved to the side road opposite see Priorslee after all the new the Hall. The chauffeur lived the Steel Rolling Mill at Sneds Hill. houses had been built. It broke my there. His name was Ruscoe who I walked from Hollinswood, heart to see it, it really did.

The Red House, 1980 Priorslee Hall from a 1948 Barber & Son Sale Brochure

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cattle, pigs, fowl and a few sheep beef; a lorry from Smith’s, a GEORGE LEESE later on after I arrived. Almost all haulage firm from Hadley, used to the farms around here were the come to the farm every day and same as far as produce was take the milk away in churns to concerned; they didn’t concentrate Bridgnorth, I can’t remember who on any one thing. They all did a had it to start with but the bit of everything. Wheat, potatoes, Midland Counties Dairy had it mixed corn, sugar beet, swedes, towards the end. The beef cattle mangels, kale, all sorts. The Hall were taken to the Smithfield at farm was 200 acres and when I Wellington to be auctioned before came here we had seven workers: slaughtering, and the sheep as Mr Jones, Clarence Addison, well. George Evans, two of the White’s Talkng of sheep, I did do a little lads, Fred Palin, myself and, of shearing but I was never very course, Ernie and the gaffer. We good at it, I couldn’t do it had so many men because almost properly. I made a mess of it; that’s everything had to be done by why we always had contractors in. hand. Farming was a lot slower in I was paid 28s – £1.40p – a those days than it is today; the week in 1948; when I finished a tractors weren’t made to go fast few years ago it was about £70. then! Nowadays the machinery Not a lot for the hours we had to has got a lot bigger, can do a lot ennis George Lees was born do, but all farm labourers were more things. And it’s more on 8th October 1931 at paid about the same. I had to most dangerous. Another thing, they DWrockwardine Wood, and things; milking, ploughing; were only just starting to use went to the ‘Glassus’ (Glasshouse) anything to do with farming, I did fertilisers when I first came here, School. His father Ron was a miner at it. but not as much as they do now. the Granville Colliery, Donnington. We used an old binder to cut The fertilisers were spread, often George first worked as a farm labourer corn. After it was cut we stood the by hand and not by air like you at Belle Vue Farm run by the Chiltons stooks up to dry for about two can get these days. We also had to in Wrockwardine Wood before he weeks (depending on the pick weeds out by hand, a back- went to work for Thomas Tranter at weather), then it was brought into breaking job, but by the early 60s Priorslee Hall Farm in 1948. He lived the barn and stacked. During the the sprays had come out and we in Priorslee ever since and was winter we thrashed it out, all by began using them. Much easier! married to Doreen. hand. We fed the cattle with the Priorslee Hall Farm’s fields straw and also used it for bedding were all the way around the farm TOM TRANTER leased the Hall and for the fowl. Most of the grain buildings, there weren’t any Farm from the Lilleshall Company, was used for feeding the animals separated or detached. We never and after he died the farm was and fowl at that time, but Tranters had to go on the main road to taken over by his son Ernie. used to sell some of the wheat. reach a field, it was quite compact. When I began work at the farm The potatoes and swedes were We didn’t have a great deal to do we still used horses for much of sold through Tranter’s Wholesalers with the other farms in the area the heavy work, but tractors were of St Georges. That was another until we started using combines, just starting to be used. We did side to their business. when we’d go and help down at mixed farming; arable, dairy The cattle were both dairy and the Castle Farm. The Kelsall’s later

The Lion Inn c.1955 when a Wrekin Ales pub The Pigeon Box Inn c.1958, another Wrekin Ales pub

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took over one of the Woodhouse Show is held in the Lion and get in. Teagues’ ran the pub when Farms, which had about 260 acres, everything is auctioned off at I first came, then Sergeant and we used to help them because night and the proceeds sent to the Howells, then his son Stan of their increased acreage. Castle Orthopaedic Hospital at Oswestry. followed by Derek Kelly, Vic Farm was just like ours, with I enter the vegetable and flower Parker, someone else and now mixed farming, and about the competitions which take place Brian Money; Brian came up from same size. Castle Farm’s now every September; I’ve got 5 cups at Donnington. They still play darts underneath the lake at the end of the moment from the 1991 and dominoes, but Stan Howells Castle Farm Way. competitions. Best Collection of and Stan’s two sons played cricket I’ve always gone to both the Vegetables, Fuschias, Best Three for the Lion. There was never any Lion Inn and the Pigeon Box. Mr Fuschias, Best in Show and second rivalry between the two pubs Heyward ran the Lion when I first in the Best Kept Garden. They give except that the darts and came, followed by George 50-some-odd trophies out each dominoes games were always Ramsden, Pat Shaw, Joe Storey year. Entries are restricted to needle matches. Davenports own and now Eddie Hickinbottom. All members of the Club, and folk the Pigeon Box as well as the Lion. have been tenants of the brewery – belong from all over. I’m a Life Again, the Wrekin always owned the Wrekin Brewery at Wellington Member of the Club so I don’t the Pigeon Box until they were owned it. They were taken over by have to pay subs and more, but taken over, just like the Lion. They Greenall Whitley. Greenall’s later others pay something like £2 a used to slaughter cattle and pigs at bought out Davenports and year. the Pigeon Box, but I think that introduced their beer into the As with any pub that’s been had finished by the time I came Greenall pubs. To start with, the modernised, it’s lost a lot of its here. Lion was an Ind Coope house character. There isn’t any plastic in The trade at both pubs doesn’t before Wrekin bought it in the the Lion, it’s all decent stuff, but seem to have been affected by the 1930s. it’s somehow lost its character, but roads being cut off at the end, so I Both pubs were just places to they have to make a living and doubt they had much passing go and drink, have a natter, play attract the new locals and office trade, just mainly locals. in the dominoes and darts teams workers in. They get a lot of office Jack Jones ran the local bus in the local leagues. You didn’t workers in there at lunch times for service and kept his buses in a tin have meals there then. I remember meals. In the old days you’d know shed in Priorslee Village, where that they never sold many spirits everybody in the pub, but now the first house on the right going at the Lion, mainly beer. The Lion you don’t. Often you get strangers into the village is now. I think they had its own Cricket Club that in and you don’t know who they were old Bedford buses, but I played on a field down the Shifnal are. could be wrong. They used to run Road; there’s a factory on it now. They used to have annual trips, every hour to St Georges, Millie Parry’s husband used to often for the men only, when Oakengates and Wellington, and play in the Cricket team. they’d go off for the day back. We used them to go The Lion had its own somewhere. Usually Sundays. I’ve shopping. gardening club which finished seen a photograph of Mrs Parry’s Terrington’s store was a small some time ago, but I’m in the new husband on one. But that’d all shop down by the Pigeon Box that one, called The Priorslee & District stopped before I came here in the sold bread, groceries and general Horticultural Society, which was 50s. goods. I think the bread came formed some seven years ago and The Pigeon Box has also been from Willets’ at Old Park. Harold which has its show in the Priorslee altered but it’s still pretty much Terrington and his wife Gladys Church Hall. The Lion Charity the same, but still a lot of strangers also sold bacon and sausages, but

Jones’s Priory Motors bus Stable Row undergoing reconstruction, 1977

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not joints of meat. Mr Terrington causeway between the main Flash was very friendly and would do or Hangie’s Pool and the Rough, MILLIE PARRY anything for you. I believe the with the mineral railway line not shop closed down during the far off. Years ago water from the middle 60s. Rough was pumped down to the Apart from the Post Office I steel rolling mill, like they did can’t remember any other shops in from the Lawn Pit. Dirty, Priorslee after I came. The Post yellowish water pumped from the Office was run from a little room disused Woodhouse Pit went into at the front of the house next door a third pool, the Oily, before it to the Lion, and it had a two-part went into Wesley Brook. Wesley stable door at the front. As well as Brook now runs into the Balancing stamps and the like they sold a Lake at the Castle Farm few tins of food and home-made Interchange before going on cakes. Mrs Biddulph kept it. There towards Shifnal and joining the was a pillar box just outside, been River Wharf on its way to the there for many years until it was River Severn at Bridgnorth. changed to a smaller box further Freeston’s lived at the Hall (see up the road away from the house plan) when I came, then Willis so that nobody would look Brown, Oxleys, then Bruce Ball straight through the window into before the Corporation took it the house after it finished being a over. Mrs Parry knows more about Post Office during the late 70s. that than I do. Where the offices illie Parry (née Dean) was The Square was just up from on the western side are now used born in Friesland Cottages, the Lion, on the same side before to be gardens and greenhouses St Georges on 20th Dark Lane; it was called that together with a pool and a little M September 1901, and was Priorslee’s because the houses were laid out boat-house. The offices are oldest resident. After leaving school at in a square shape. Ron Withington roughly where the pool was. 16 she took up tailoring for Edwin who worked at the steel rolling It must be about 20 years ago Ball at Oakengates’ Market Street mill lived in one of them, at the that the Corporation started until she married Belcher ‘Bel’ Parry back. They’ve knocked all of them levelling out the mounds, building in 1930. Thereafter she did occasional down now, I can’t remember the new roads ready for all the work for Mr Ball as well as Dickens of when. I’m hopeless with dates! new housing estates at Priorslee. Oakengates. Bel was chauffeur for the The Lilleshall Company owned All the buildings at the Lawn Pit, Lilleshall Company at Priorslee Hall. them and I think they were which was on the other side of the After her husband died in 1957 originally built as miners’ cottages, bank opposite the Lion, together Millie was employed as cook and same as some of the houses in the with those at the Stafford Pit (on housekeeper for Mrs Bruce Ball who village on the other side of the what is now part of Stafford Park) occupied the Hall at the time. When Shifnal Road. There was also a were demolished as well. The Telford Development Corporation farmhouse by Dark Lane that Woodhouse Colliery banks were purchased the Hall, Millie was belonged to Sid Lee. shifted before the Bovis houses retained to make coffee, tea, etc., for The village didn’t change much were built there. Some of the pit the Board members. She retired in in appearance until after Telford banks had been on fire with 1977 and lived in one of the Hall Development Corporation started. internal combustion! In fact, some Farm cottages. One row was extensively altered, of the Woodhouse banks were and I think that Stable Row was lugged away for airfield knocked down and completely construction during the War. rebuilt with the original bricks. Before the offices were built we They tried to alter it but the never used to see any traffic at all mortar was so bad that they except for the bloke that came to couldn’t do anything with it. fetch the milk from our farm and All the pits had been closed for the occasional visitor. Mr Parry, a long time before I came to chauffeur at the Hall, came every Priorslee, but there were spoil morning to get milk for the offices. heaps and tips everywhere that The road then only came down to wasn’t farmland. My wife used to the Hall and the Farm; it wasn’t a swim in the Rough Pool, and got through road. changed in some small changing It’s totally different now! rooms that were on where the little island in the lake is now. Corfield’s grocery shop near Snedshill Brickworks burned down in 1915 That island was then part of the 8 http://www.stgeorgesandpriorslee-pc.gov.uk/ Priorslee Remembered - SGPPC version_Layout 1 23/07/2018 15:29 Page 9

I RECALL there being one The Lilleshall Company owned elder brother was always keen on little shop – Butlers – in the old practically everything in Priorslee gardening and worked there. Sneds Hill, on the right hand side and Sneds Hill; the pits, the farms, That’s how we got to know them. of the road leading from the Four the houses, even the School and They gave us apples and all sorts Ways towards St Georges. They the even theChurch. of things out of the garden. Hail, had the shop in their front room The old Village was a bit rain or sunshine, we had milk and you could get pop, sweets, all dilapidated, old fashioned. Not from there. It wasn’t a farm; sorts of little odds and ends, and much money was either available perhaps they kept one cow and household essentials. They did or spent on maintenance, so it all they let us have surplus milk. quite a good trade really. got a bit run down. But the As for bus services! It’s Mr Tart the policeman ran a Corporation took it down to disgraceful what we’ve had to put shop, owned by Bannisters, down square one and renovated a lot of up with since the local bus by the Pigeon Box. Two houses it. Made really good houses out of services were ‘rationalised’ over have been built on the land where what was there before. Much nicer ten years ago. it was. They sold mostly groceries, now. The houses now called Stable We don’t really have much of a cheese and bacon; it was a very Row were remodelled from the bus service now. I have to wait for nice little shop. The only other original bricks; they made them someone to take me shopping in shop in Priorslee was Biddulph’s beautiful! Some friends of mine their car. Unless you’ve got a car, on the Shifnal Road; they sold lived in one, and it was beautiful, things are difficult. Ernie Tranter, mostly sweets. It became the Post with a lovely garden as well. the farmer, used to take me Office, but an older Post Office The whole area around the shopping, he was as good as gold! used to be higher up on the corner Village was covered in pit In the old days we used Jack at one time. Biddulph’s son had a mounds, very ugly. And the pools: Jones’ bus service. He had a heart house built in the garden behind one used to grow and grow when of gold. He’d do anything for you. the shop. It’s still there. more water went into it. There was When we used to go to the Mr Howells who ran the the Rough, where my brothers Priorslee Hall Lodge, where my Pigeon Box used to play cricket went swimming as boys, and the husband and I lived when he was with my husband for the Lion overflow into the bigger pool that the Company chauffeur, the bus Inn’s team. Both pubs haven’t seemed to creep towards St should have terminated in the changed a great deal on the Georges! They sometimes Village but Jack would shout outside, but they’ve both been mentioned a pool called the down the bus, ‘Sit thee down, lass, modernised on the inside. From ‘Spring’, but I don’t know where I’ll take thee home!’ what I hear, they’re quite go-ahead that was, I never found out. He kept his bus in the Village, young people who have them. Even the house that’s now the and it saved me having to walk Stone House, on the left of the doctor’s surgery was one of the down the road passed the Lion, Lion Inn, used to belong to the Lilleshall houses. Joe Teague and especially if it was a bad night. Lilleshall Company. Mr his family lived there when I was I remember there was a girl Kenworthy, one of the officials of a wee girl. I don’t know what he once who was crying because the company, lived there. did exactly, but he must have had she’d missed the last bus to Champion Jones lived at Ivy a good job in the Offices to get a Sherrifhales. Again, Jack said,’Sit Grove just in the Village; I think house like that. thee down. I’ll see’s that you get he had something to do with the I used to go there every day home!’ And he took her all the Pits. They, like all the Lilleshall and get a big tin of milk for a few way home for nothing! He was Company houses, have since been coppers. I don’t think they’d sell it very kind, good hearted and a bit sold. as a regular thing, but as a boy my of a character.

St Peter’s Church, Priorslee, c.1920 Priorslee Hall

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The school at Priorslee was I think we went with the Mount was just like being at the sea-side! built by the Lilleshall Company Zion Chapel on top of the hill. We’d take something to eat and last century for the children of all That’s been down many, many milk from the farm. the folk who worked for the years. It was falling apart even There was an old Dutch lady, company in the area. We were then, because of Pit subsidence. complete with clogs, who worked very fond of the teachers. Mr My grandmother used to sing at Castle Farm. She was a funny Upton, the Headmaster, was bent and recite there as a girl. On old thing! The Kelsall’s were double, nearly in two, I don’t Sunday School outings we’d go in Quakers, a very nice family. We know what his problem was, Tranter’s farm brakes – big, open very seldom went to any of the perhaps something wrong with wagons with seats either side – to other farms. his spine. But he was a good man. places like Cherrington and My father William worked as a Mr Price and Mrs Turner were Ellerdine, and we thought it was miner at the Woodhouse Pit and teachers; she was a lovely person. I wonderful! We’d have a picnic and we often went for walks there. I can remember her giving us play games in the fields and pick never had a head for heights, but lessons on Home Management, apples from the trees. We really we used to walk up the steps and I was thrilled to bits! That looked forward to them! made from big planks, like railway made up my mind. I wasn’t going I had the time of my life in the sleepers, and at the top you could to carry on doing things the way I Church Institute! We had dances see through the planks into the at home, and I couldn’t wait to get every weekend put on by Mr shaft below. My stomach used to home quick enough to do my jobs Griffiths who looked after it. I turn over! the way she said! seem to remember it was a big tin Father worked hard and died We also had to go to Sunday place, made of corrugated iron young, only 59 years old. He had School at St Peter’s Church. At one sheets. It had a very big room. gases on his stomach; when he time we used to go to the Mrs McLoughlin taught us breathed heavily when resting at Methodist Chapel on Priorslee how to waltz and other dances. home you could smell the gas Road, but I don’t remember when Square dances, quadrilles, the coming off his chest. He also had or why we started going to St Lancers. I can’t tell you how much heart and kidney trouble brought Peter’s. I enjoyed them! Lots of people on by working in the Pit. He was a Several of us went, including went there, including my brothers poor old man at 59. Health and Mrs Margerrison when she was a and sisters. I don’t remember there safety in the mines wasn’t what it girl with me, and I used to sing being many sports there at that is now. something soft or silly during the time except those put on by the The Stafford Pit, opposite the hymns, which made them all Church. We did have egg-and- Lodge and on the southern side of laugh! I didn’t think I’d been spoon racing and things like that the Shifnal Road, was only kept spotted, but I did get told off and for the younger children. open to extract the water and ordered to go home! Oh, I was The farms used to belong, like prevent it from flooding the other upset about it! I told my mother everything else, to the Lilleshall pits in the area. I think the Lawn that I was never going back again, Company. There was no electric or Pit was closed for working but the but she said, ‘Oh, yes, you are!’ gas in the Village early on, and water was also pumped from there And I did, but I cried and cried. So folk had candles and oil lamps in for the same reason but used in I went back and some of the elder their homes. the rolling mill at Sneds Hill. I girls made a fuss of me and As children we often went believe mining at the Stafford and everything was all right. down to the Brook near Kelsall’s Lawn Pits had finished before I We went on several Sunday Castle Farm. There was a small came along, but the Woodhouse School trips when I was a wee girl. sandy place down there, and it Pit continued working.

Stafford Colliery, c.1870 Plan of Stafford Colliery

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My husband and I lived at the husband was returning from just wasn’t designed to make life Lodge after we were married. He Shifnal after fetching the wages. I easy! My mother-in-law said not was the chauffeur to the Company, pointed them out to him; he to bother, but we had to have both a very responsible job. We lived fetched his gun and we finished jam and marmalade. there until the 1940s when we up eating them. He was a good The kitchen in the Hall during moved into the Hall Farm shot! Bruce Ball’s time was nice and big. cottages. He was also a good cricketer, Everything was refurbished with He always drove good class especially bowler but also an all- beautiful furniture all round, cars, I can’t remember their makes, rounder, deputy captain of the cupboards to match with double and took the old Earl of Granville Lion Cricket Club (the vicar was sinks and a large AGA cooker as all over the place. The young Earl the captain). They played many a well as an electric stove and a liked to drive the car himself. My match to win cups and trophies. mixer. Plenty of room and work husband drove all the important The pitch was just opposite the surfaces. people, picked them up from and Lodge, so he didn’t have far to go! The floor was covered in red returned them to the railway Quite a number of things took Marley tiles. I enjoyed cleaning station. He did ordinary jobs as place at the Hall, not only them with soapy water and a drop well, like fetching the wages if he business. For example, at or two of paraffin oil at weekends: was available, and could converse Christmas time a band used to it gave such a polish! It looked with people from all walks of life. come inside and play. lovely! I was so proud of that Cyril Nicholls, the Company We actually lived inside the kitchen, it was a joy to work in. Secretary, said he was more Hall for some of the War years. All When we got married Mr essential to the Company than the girls except the cook were Freeston lived at the Hall and most. Indispensible. My husband taken off to help the War effort. Bruce Ball came later. I can was a real gentleman. Always The cook lived in the Village and remember my mother telling me looked smart in his uniform – went home at night to her that a Mr McKinley lived there navy blue suit with chauffeur’s husband, so the old people in the before the Freestons. cap – and was very well Hall were left on their own. There was also Willis Brown, mannered. ‘Tall, smart and They didn’t like it, so they but he didn’t reign long; I don’t handsome,’ as my mother used to asked my husband, his mother know what he did, but whatever it say. The suit was tailored by (who lived with us at the time) was meant that he didn’t stay in Steventon’s at Wellington. and I to move in for the duration. residence for very long. The My husband used to go and In fact, the only reason we left Browns and Freestons were very shoot pheasants and hares during there was because they were going good friends, came from Sheffield, the harvest time when all the to put someone else in the Lodge. and stayed at the Hall quite activity startled them. I do miss But I didn’t really want to go; frequently as guests of the the hares! Sometimes I’d say, ‘I I’d got used to living in the Hall Freestons. don’t know what we’re going to and was quite happy there. Who Mr Oxley, another Managing have for dinner tomorrow.’ And wouldn’t be? And then I was back Director of the Company, also he’d take himself off into the fields cooking on top of a very small lived at the Hall for a while, a bit and come back with something. stove again, it was a nuisance! before the War. He was very good He wasn’t supposed to have the Especially pheasants (they were strictly for when I came folk at the Hall), but we often did! to make jam I remember that one day I saw and partridges in the garden just as my marmalade, it

Woodhouse Colliery, c.1930s Plan showing location of Woodhouse 1 (top) and 2 Collieries

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at his job, although he was fond of not a patch on what it had been his tipple. before. BILLY PASCALL The dividends picked up and Years before, the Lilleshall the Company was even able to Company had such a wonderful issue extra shares free to existing reputation that men went all over shareholders during his time. Mrs the world erecting things for the Oxley was a very nice person who company. It never really regained died of cancer after a breast its former glory after the Slump, operation. I seem to remember and has steadily declined over the that one of her daughters never years. gave her a bit of peace. Things, as I said, picked up in The gardens at the Hall were Oxley’s time, but never to the very pretty. I often picked the fruit same extent. What was left of the when they gave me permission. Lilleshall Company became a new Raspberries, blackcurrants and company, Lilleshall Plc. We are gooseberries in particular. now [1993] getting better Mrs Freeston used to say, dividends than we did from the ‘Parry, never go short on old company. I think they’re based vegetables! If you haven’t got any in Bristol now. It’s sad when you there’s always plenty in the Hall!’ think they once employed, Of course, we weren’t on big housed, educated and entertained wages but it was always regular, so many people in the area, not and these little extras were of great just Priorslee. illiam ‘Billy’ H Pascall was benefit. They were very kind to us. After the Corporation bought born at Grove Street, St The Lilleshall Company the Hall I was kept on to make Georges on 21st December Engineering Department was coffee and suchlike for the Board. W 1914 and attended St Georges Church closed down during the Slump in They were very good to me and I of England School. His father, also Mr Freeston’s time. Things were don’t think I’d ever been invited to named William, was killed in an very bad then. so many parties in my life! explosion at the Woodhouse Pit in Doris Tranter’s father had The Village was once a very 1932. Billy took up bricklaying at the worked there as a boy and went quiet place; my sister used to say, age of 15 and travelled throughout the back to work for the Company ‘You want to get somewhere country doing civil engineering work when things picked up, but he where it’s civilised!’ before enlisting in the army in 1942. said it was pitiful to see it, it was He was demobbed as Class B in 1945, married Vera and lived at Cannock before moving back to the Priorslee area. He then went to work at Sankey’s and retired as a foreman in the civil engineering section in 1978.

THERE WASN’T very much to do in Priorslee when we were children. This was a very depressed area in the 1920s and 1930s and wages were very low. Some said that the Lilleshall Company robbed the poor to pay the rich. They never seemed to invest anything in the people; the shareholders wanted as much as they could get. There were, of course, some social evenings, but there was a strict discipline imposed by our parents; we had to be back home by 9 o’clock. Many of the social events took place in the chapels. I was a member of the gymnastics clubs at St Georges and Plan of Priorslee Hall and Lawn Colliery (north of the Lion Inn) Donnington and went three times 12 http://www.stgeorgesandpriorslee-pc.gov.uk/ Priorslee Remembered - SGPPC version_Layout 1 23/07/2018 15:29 Page 13

a week. The gym classes taught us Church, Sneds Hill Chapel and St At weekends we used to go out how to wield India clubs, perform Peter’s Church, Priorslee. I went to on the banks (pit mounds), pitch a statues and hand springs, boxing – the Mission Church, the Granville tent and let the cubs sleep away in fact anything to do with Mission, Muxton Mission, all of from home overnight until they gymnastics. them in turn. went back on the Sunday. The I very seldom went to the I was in the Church of England children cooked their own food concerts; children had to go with a Scouts at St Georges and later (under our supervision) and had a grown-up, but there were formed my own troop of Scouts great time! occasions when an hour-long and Cubs with Tommy Dawes at When I was in the Scouts, social event was laid on just for Snedshill Methodist Chapel in about a dozen of us used to go, the youngsters, starting at either 6 Priorslee. Even though it was bugles sounding, to a different or 7 o’clock, and you had to get based at the Chapel it was ‘free’, church or chapel every Sunday home quickly afterwards. We not attached to any particular night. We even went to the played Postman’s Knock and Blind denomination. It was because of it Salvation Army. Not only churches Man’s Buff together with a bit of being open to anyone that we had in Priorslee, St Georges, Sneds dancing to old gramophone quite a rough crowd of colliers’ Hill, Muxton and Donnington but records and had food if we took children who could only afford a also to Oakengates, Dawley, in fact some with us. There wasn’t much penny or a ha’penny each week to any of them that would have us. It food to spare then, we were attend. was good, because we’d always rationed. We paid a penny to go When they bought their got a bit of backing through not towards the lighting and heating. uniforms they would have to buy being tied to a single place. They I remember that the Institute one item every month, perhaps all donated towards tents and had a billiard room and a football starting with a neckerchief or pair other things. There was some team – in fact, my brother Geoff of socks and then a pair of shorts method in it, but we all used to used to play for Priorslee. There when the socks had been paid for, enjoy it. We’d decide where we are some of the old Priorslee and so on. By the time they’d paid were going and write them a letter footballers still about. I can’t for the shorts the socks would be to let them know, and the remember when the team worn out! Of course, some parents churchfolk would all be waiting disbanded, sometime during the could afford to pay for jerseys as for us, shaking hands and so on. 1940s, I think. Some rare things well, but most were quite badly All told we had between 20 and 30 took place in the Institute – lads off. Nevertheless, each boy had regular members, but not all were riding bicycles inside. One chap in got at least one part of the able to come all the time. particular rode his bicycle on top uniform. Our colours were green We went swimming in the of a billiard table without falling with a yellow neckerchief. They ‘Rough Razzer’ (Hangman’s Pool off! were damn good lads! or The Flash). There were three Many social events took place Our troop won trophies for pools; The Flash, The ‘Oily’ and there in the 1930s – whist drives, every competition we entered, the man-made Reservoir. We Mothers’ Union meetings, such as football and field craft. I changed on the side of the pool; rummage sales and so on. I think never had a minute to spare; I no swimming trunks, just a big the Church helped to provide used to come back from work and handkerchief or a pair of football funds for it. go out straight away to organise a shorts! We weren’t proud, there My family lived at Rock paper chase or something else. We wasn’t any money to spend on Terrace in St Georges before taught them the Scout Laws, how luxuries. moving to Freeston Avenue in to tie different knots, how to The Lilleshall Company’s Priorslee. I’ve attended St Georges survive, how to track by mineral railway line came down recognising all from the Woodhouse Pits, passed the animal the Oily Pool, along Hangman’s spoors, collect Hill and down what is now part of wild flowers the main road from Telford’s Mark (and name roundabout on the A5 to the main them!) and so on. Priorslee roundabout by the In fact, there Shifnal Road. The Woodhouse Pits wasn’t a wild were near Dixon’s Farm – the flower around Lower Woodhouse Farm. The here that you farmhouse is still there, a red could name and I house standing on its own with didn’t know new estate houses surrounding it. where it was to The Doctor’s Surgery next to the be found! I knew present newsagents’ shop was lived Priorslee School, 1954. Miss A Howells is back row, left every footpath in by Mrs Tranter and her daughter around here. Lillian after Mr Tranter died and Priorslee Remembered 13 Priorslee Remembered - SGPPC version_Layout 1 23/07/2018 15:29 Page 14

they had to leave his farm, and the Rough (the field south of woman, that was the belief. If ever later by her son Paul before it Hangman’s Hill). Even though you saw a woman in a butcher’s became the Surgery. A foreman or they were totally blind, their shop she was only allowed to manager (Mr Beech?) of something blinkers were left on. They could wrap the pork up, never touch it! to do with the Lilleshall Company still recognise the voices of the Wrap it up, put it in the basket (possibly the Steel Mill) lived in men who had driven them down and take the money. Nothing else. the house before the Tranters. the pit, and sidled over to them There were very few shops in During the 1926 General Strike and were fed apples and scraps of Priorslee or Sneds Hill. There was (and at other times) I used to help food. It was rather touching. one, a sweet and grocery store dig out coal from makeshift pits Gordon Anslow and his father which also sold odds and ends when the proper Pits were ‘Laddie’ Anslow killed pigs. He (darning wool and other boycotted. In fact, I lost one of my was a farm labourer who may essentials), on Stafford Road schoolfriends who sat next to me once have worked in the Pits and where Sneds Hill ‘Four Ways’ is, when he got buried down by The left them because of ill health. He next to four old cottages (now Rookery banks between St went to Dixon’s Farm and later left demolished). Georges and Donnington. to work at Lee’s Farm on Dark There was another shop in I sometimes went with my Lane. Then he left Lee’s and went Freeston Avenue (run by Mrs grandparents to the Muxtonbridge back to Dixon’s, then run by Frank Nock), then Mrs Barrister had a mine at Donnington as well as on Dixon. Alf Dixon runs another general grocery near the Pigeon the banks near Hangman’s Hill. farm on the Red Hill. Box on the other side of the road. My grandparents had a horse and Nearly every cottager in the old The Post Office was run by Mrs trap to carry the sacks on. When days kept chickens in a pen and Biddulph down by the Lion Inn. the horse went lame my father got pigs in a small pigsty. There’s She sold tobacco, cigarettes, sweets into the shafts and pulled the trap nothing like having your own as well as stamps, and would himself. He almost got killed one eggs! But as soon as a chicken order foodstuffs if anyone asked. time; he had about a ton of coal on went broody and stopped laying, There were more shops board when he very nearly lost its time was up, and you’d get (including about six butchers!) in control going down a hill, but he another to replace it! There weren’t St Georges and most people didn’t let go of the shafts. It was any restrictions on keeping pigs. tended to go there, or Oakengates. marvellous to see his strength You’d kill a pig when you had to. You have to remember that Sneds prevent a serious accident as the Everything was used, the Hill and Priorslee were little more trap gained speed! intestines, the bacon, the pork, than small settlements, nothing There were several pit ponies nothing was lost, only the squeal! like a town. I can remember here; Harry Price was the ostler at Gordon travelled from house to Freeston Avenue being built, and the Woodhouse Pit. Gordon house, charging about three all the housing which covers the Anslow’s grandfather was ostler at shillings to kill each pig, hang it area now. It just wasn’t there when the Grange Pit. Both were little and go back to cut it up, salt the I was a lad! Everything was open men. Isaac Smith was another one. flitches and hams on the settlice land, fields and spoil heaps. They had the best remedies out for with saltpetre on the bone so that Sneds Hill Square was at the all ills, including broken limbs – the bone didn’t rot. And a woman crossroads above the Pigeon Box, horse liniment! I still believe in it was never allowed to touch a pig and the Coal Wharf was just and I still get some, even now! It before it was about to be cooked, below the Box. Sergeant Howells stinks, but it’s lovely stuff! especially if she was on her lived in a little row of cottages by When the ponies retired from monthlies! It was taboo. The pig the mineral line to the Woodhouse the pits they were turned out on would go bad if touched by a Pit. Priorslee Road then continued

Snedshill Brickworks; now site of Wickes and ALDI stores Lilleshall Company’s Drawing Office

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straight into the village and went that went to the Pigeon Box. farm and never turned anyone off to the left towards the Lawn Unless one of the pubs ran out of away. If you worked there you had Pit, long before the roundabout beer, everyone went to their own your breakfast and tea provided; was built in the 1970s or 1980s. inn. The Pigeon Box had a at harvest time they’d come round The mineral line crossed the slaughter house at the back for with a basket of victuals and a jug road where the island is now and killing pigs and cattle. Gordon of cider or beer. At the farm, there was a level crossing gate Anslow went there as well as to everyone was fed at the same there to hold up traffic when the peoples’ houses to do his work. table. They were the world’s best engines needed to pass through. They’ve still got the hanging employers. Wooden troughs were supported hooks in the ceiling above the bar. As a lad I used to go potato on scaffolding about 16 feet high Pigeon racing has always been picking in the fields, cocked the across the Shifnal road, and they very popular around here and sheaves of corn (there weren’t any carried water bucket-pumped that’s probably why the pub is combines then), eight sheaves from the Lawn Pit all the way called the Pigeon Box, but I’m not stooked up with one on the top to down to a reservoir above the steel sure. The mill workers would go hold them down. Then the rolling mill on Sneds Hill. to the nearest pub to set the threshing machine separated the I can remember the furnaces pigeons off, and the Pigeon Box stalks from the grain. We got there very well, because when was the closest after the works covered in dust, black as the ace of they opened the coke ovens it was canteen. spades! The chaff was used as like a red sky at night for hours on The pub was also used to share deep litter for poultry; the end while the coke was being out money when the men got paid chickens scratched around for knocked out of the ovens, at the Pit. You see, there were four missed grain. I also gathered hay especially when the top of the men in what was called a Stall, or with a long wooden rake, cupola was open and flames shot a gang, and they pooled all their scooping it into piles. Balers were into the air. The smell was awful! wages according to what they’d just appearing, but Kelsalls didn’t Very sulphury! done in the mine. Diggers got have one then. Priorslee Square was behind more than packers (who shovelled When I came out of the army the Lion Inn. A lot of people lived the coal into boxes), and the and wandered about the fields, up there, and the main road money was divided equally perhaps picking water cress from divided the Square from the between the members of the Stall. Wesley Brook, Mr Kelsall would Village. They were very clannish, I know I got paid more money see that it was me and let me carry and if you borrowed something working at Sankey’s than my on, but if it was anybody else, a from anyone it had to be returned, father got for working down the stranger, he’d be after them! I even a jug of beer! (They brewed Pit, and he worked longer hours always shut the gates after me, beer in the Square.) It was really than I did. mended fences or helped to bring like two settlements, not one. Castle Farm was run by the stray cattle in. Although people brewed their Kelsall family. They were Quakers. I can remember once, when I own beer, the pub survived My brother Albert worked there as was cutting some holly in the dark because folk went there for a a cowman. There was once an Iron on a Christmas Eve, I was up the natter and to swap yarns, and you Age and Roman settlement there; top of the tree where the berries can’t take your own beer into a that’s probably why it’s called were bigger and better. Young pub! Castle Farm [in fact, it was an Iron Buck turned up and shouted out, The Lion was once thought, Age animal enclosure]. Kelsall’s “Hey, you! What’re you doing up incorrectly, to be a coach house, in children were Johnny, Buck, Bill there?” a different community to those and Mary. They all helped on the I called down, “Just wait a

Pit mount removal at level crossing, c.1970s Lilleshall Company’s Steel Rolling Mill

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Farm. All were known as ‘The FRANK DIXON Woodhouse’, which was a little confusing. Lilleshall Company logo There were three other farms in the area: Dark Lane Farm run by minute, sonny, while I come the Lee brothers; Castle Farm by down.” the Kelsalls, and Priorslee Hall Remember, I’d just come out of Farm run by Tom Tranter and later the army, and I said, “Now, sonny, his son Ernie. you run home and tell your father The sizes of the farms were as that I fought for this country and follows: mine was about 115 acres; I’m going to live on it!” the Upper Woodhouse some 130 The next Sunday morning I acres and the Woodhouse about was with my brother Albert and 200 acres; Kelsall’s Farm (Castle Buck said to him, “That’s the fella! Farm) 250 acres; Tranter’s Farm But don’t you say nothing to him!” was about 200 acres; and Lee’s Albert told him I was his Farm around 300 acres. brother and that I’d eat him alive if We did mixed farming at the he said anything! Lower Woodhouse, but dairy Mind you, I never did any cattle were the most important harm really. I just took the odd and biggest side. We grew a few vegetable, perhaps a swede, if I cereals, sugar beet and potatoes. needed one. Never more than I rank Dixon was born at We didn’t keep sheep after the first needed. I also did a bit of Allscott near Wellington on 8th couple of years I farmed there rabbiting and ferreting. My father June 1917. His father, also because we had too much trouble kept ferrets. I put wire snares F with dogs worrying them. Nor did named Frank, ran a farm there until down for the rabbits and had a moving to Admaston in 1926 and we do much beef in those days. .404 rifle, but never went on working at the Sugar Beet Factory at We did have a few pigs and anybody’s land with it unless I Allscott. From 1930 the family farmed chickens, of course. About two or had permission. at Condover near Shrewsbury and in three hundred chickens, not a lot. We used to have a stewpot on 1936 took over the tenancy of Lower We never really went into poultry the old-fashioned hob, and it was Woodhouse Farm, Priorslee. in a big way. never empty! While one rabbit was After his father died in 1947, We sold a few eggs to the Egg in there another would be waiting! Frank managed the farm for his Marketing Board, who came and The pot only got cleaned out on a mother Lucy and eventually went into fetched them once a fortnight, Friday night. We had a mug and partnership with her. From 1962 to about 90 dozen. We also sold a some pearl barley next to the pot, 1970 he farmed the land with his wife fewat the door. Some folk came for and Friday night was senna tea Maisie until Telford Development them every Sunday for almost 40 night. I hated it! And if you had a Corporation purchased it, after which years! They very seldom missed. bit of a spot on you, it was a mug he worked for the Telford Trust. He There was a part of the Wesley of infused pearl barley to cure it, retired in 1982 but continued to live Brook which had bricks built on either side with a narrow entrance or, if you had a cough, some butter in the farmhouse until 1986. and sugar on a spoon together at one end. Bits of it are still there. A big iron plate was slotted with a mouthful of sulphur. NONE OF the farms in Priorslee between the bricks and into the There were lots of rabbits, foxes were owned privately; they were stream to dam it up, about four or and badgers here when I was a all rented from the Lilleshall five foot deep, and the sheep were boy. Now there’s only a few foxes Company who in turn leased them pushed into the water to wash the and rabbits left. I remember dogs from Lord Stafford who actually wool free of flies and maggots catching badgers, and we used to owned the farms and the land. before shearing. No chemicals dig fox cubs out on the Castle There were four farms called were used. Farm land by the brook. There was ‘Woodhouse Farm’, three of them The water from the pools by a publican at Hinstock who took in Priorslee. The one where I lived, the Woodhouse Pit fed the stream, them from us, or we sent them to Lower Woodhouse Farm, was by but they could divert water the Hunt at Albrighton. They kept the Woodhouse Pit. The proper pumped from the old Lawn Pit if them for training the hounds to Woodhouse Farm is to the east of there was a shortage. This didn’t follow the scent. my farm and is currently managed happen very often because the But we never killed for killing’s by John Harmer. On the top of the water from the Lawn was sake. I always liked to see the Red Hill, where my nephew lives discoloured. foxes, especially stalking along a now, was the Upper Woodhouse Normally we’d kill only two hedge in the sunlight. It’s the most Farm, and on the Donnington side pigs a year, just for the house wonderful sight!. of the A5 was another Woodhouse during the war. Everything was on 16 http://www.stgeorgesandpriorslee-pc.gov.uk/ Priorslee Remembered - SGPPC version_Layout 1 23/07/2018 15:29 Page 17

ration, terrible really, and two pigs were allowed to keep oats and was done by hand. It made would keep us in bacon for the barley for our own use, and all the milking so much easier, and full twelve months. A chap named cattle. For instance, we might be quicker. During summertime in Harry Anslow came to kill and told to send 10 tons of potatoes the War, though, I used to milk in prepare them. He’s dead now, down the the Rhondda Valley. I the morning at about 6 o’clock. poor chap. Around Christmas he’d must have put hundreds of tons After that I’d drive the tractor until be very busy slaughtering in the on the trains at Oakengates and 10 or 12 o’clock at night. My fields area. He worked for us, actually, Shifnal Stations, to go all over the were grouped very much together. for quite a number of years. He country. Hundreds of tons, all in All the arable was from where was very handy. Never killed hundredweight sacks. I took them the Telford’s Mark island is on the anything on a Sunday. down on a trailer, three tons at a A5 right across down to the lane After he’d cut them up I’d do time. They could load up to nine that goes to Shifnal. There were the salting – dry salting – down in tons in a railway truck. four biggish fields on one side of the cellar. We bought big blocks of The milk from the cattle went the road (from about 12½ to 18 salt, about 14 pounds in a block. I to the Midland Counties Dairy at acres apiece), all ploughed. There remember my mother never let Penn, near Wolverhampton. That was another little field at the top any female touch a pig, I don’t was very little trouble, really. We of the lane (it’s been made into a know why, but she was really used to get a few complaints at coppice, planted with trees) that brilliant at making anything like times, to do with butter fat and we ploughed as well. The field sausage, black pudding, pork pies; solids in the milk, but we always where Barratt Homes built all their nothing was wasted, nothing. came out right. A firm called Clark houses was also ploughed. You’d never tasted anything like it & Smith’s collected the milk in When I started at the farm I in your life! lorries, once a day at about 8 only had a tractor, an old 1939 We used to milk about 35 or 40 o’clock in the morning. All the Ford. In 1940/41 we had a brand cattle and grew sugar beet on milk was in churns. new Ford tractor delivered and it about 10 acres, 8 or 9 acres of They did nothing else but cost £177. Modern tractors cost potatoes. During the War we were collect milk from farms unless something like £24,000! It’s more or less told what to grow by they took sugar beet during the unbelievable! the Ministry of Agriculture and annual campaign down to the Beet To start with, the corn crops which fields we’d have to plough Factory at Allscott. In those days were cut with a binder, then up. Even if a field had been almost every wagon going down stoked, carted off, stacked and pasture for many years you the Shifnal Road towards then thrashed, all by hand. Very couldn’t get out of doing what Wolverhampton and Birmingham hard work. And you’d have to they said. They even controlled belonged to Clark & Smith’s. Later carry the two-hundredweight bags the prices of the milk and cereals. the same day you’d see them all on your back about 50 yards from The Ministry of Food told us coming back again, fleets of them. the old barn to the granary. where to send all the potatoes and Until 1944, when we bought a Farming in the early days was wheat grain we produced but we milking machine, all the milking hard work, but fun. We used to

The Flash and mineral railway with Lower Woodhouse Farm bottom centre and houses at St Georges top right

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enjoy it. I don’t really know what Italy, and I think my mother started to fly. I used to go with was enjoyable about it, but we hoped that if ever he was captured Cliff Lees. One chap, Tom Gittins were young and that makes the he would be treated as well as we (who was later killed in the difference. The pace of life was treated the prisoners who worked Grange Pit) said to us, ‘You lads quite slow, no desparate hurry, but on our farm. But he came home go and sit in the corner. I’ll do you’d have to work and stick at it. safely. your fighting for you!’ We were You wouldn’t rush a job. In 1947 we still had prisoners frightened to death! In the harvest, you’d never seen helping, and I remember one The Quarry had a choir, they anything like it, in the War. The German, an excellent worker, who sang like nightingales. If you men would come out of the Pit, drove the tractor for me. Several didn’t get to the pub early you’d wash their faces in the horse times he was so engrossed in his never find a seat. Busloads from trough, and they’d be helping us ploughing that he forgot the time Cannock came, just to listen to harvest until 5 or 6 o’clock at and missed the lorry back to the them. They also had a Harvest night. They wouldn’t accept any camp, and he’d have to walk all Festival every year at the Quarry wages, they wouldn’t be paid, all the way there on his own. and the Vicar came too. they had was barrels of cider – as I brewed beer, but not cider. I know the Lion put on trips for much as they wanted – and Made it from these ‘Home Packs’ the men and had a gardening club, ‘harvest rations’ – bread and you can get! My wife made nettle but I’ve never been involved in cheese. I’ve seen as many as 28 pop, very potent, I can tell you! them. I did go on trips to New men in the Woodhouse at night. But my beer! Terrible stuff! Brighton on the Wirral with the The most men we employed full Anyone who wasn’t used to it ... Quarry; when there we’d go on time was three, so you can see that well, it was awful! In 1969 I cruises down the Mersey on the at harvest time we made good use brewed a lot of wine and beer and ferry Royal Daffodil. There’d be of help from the miners. it was down the cellar for 17 years! dancing and singing on the boat, We also used to have Harvest When we moved from the Farm we did have some good times, and Supper s at the Farm in we brought it all up and put it in the ladies would go along too. October/November, and cook a the yard. What was I to do with it? As for the local bus service, goose for the men who’d helped. I didn’t want it. A chappie came. Jack Jones ran it, he was a They enjoyed it! But no, they’d He was used to drinking seven or character! He had two buses, not never get paid; they wouldn’t eight pints a night, and he tried very big ones I recall, about 26- accept it and got annoyed if you one of the bottles of beer. He had seaters. His son Gordon drove the offered them money. My dad was half a tumbler full and couldn’t get one and Jack would drive the a very generous man. He enjoyed up the stairs! other himself. I believe his other a pint, and used to go across to the Then the combine harvester son Clive at Wrockwardine Wood pub, the Quarry opposite St came along and made things drove as well in the end. Georges Church, and treat them to much easier and faster. The early There were three pools near the a drink or two. He was very combines were called ‘Baggers’; Woodhouse Pit: Hangie’s popular, my dad was! they bagged the grain. Later on (Hangman’s), The Rough and the Apart from casual labour to the combines had a trailer moving Oily. The big one was the pull beet or pick potatoes, during alongside with a tank on it so that Hangie’s, next to the main road, the war we had prisoners of war, the grain could be taken away in the Rough was over the mineral Italians first (they weren’t much bulk. An auger pumped the grain railway lines, we used to swim good) and later Germans, from the from the combine into the tank, there. The Rough was where The camps at Sherrifhales. and you didn’t need to stop. Promenade is now. The Oily pool They were dropped off in After my father died I was below the Rough, separated lorries or buses in the morning practically lived at the Quarry; I by a track. The Oily was actually a and were picked up again at 5 took his seat! I got very friendly flooded field, dug out when the o’clock at night. They had exactly with the landlord. I’ve been to the new housing development started. the same food as we had. When Pigeon Box and Lion, but not I’ve seen as many as 200 they first came they only had a regular. I prefered the Quarry. The swimming in the Rough on warm lump of bread and two links of pubs in the old days were a bit Sundays in the summer! They had sausage to last them through the crude, no plush seats or anything diving boards and the like there! day, so mother had them in to eat like that, only wooden benches. The Oily was called that the same as us. Chicken, beef, They were grand places really, because of the reddish colouring whatever we had, they had, and with grand folks. A bit on the from the iron ore draining out of they appreciated it. rough side, but very friendly and the Pit mound. They also pumped The language problem wasn’t genuine. water out of the mine at one time, very good, but we managed to We used to play cards and using a massive machine. It was make one another understand. I dominoes. If somebody cheated, never clear water, always red. had a brother out with the army in off came the jackets and fists There were good fish in the

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Hangie’s Pool. Terrific pike. Barratt Homes built their houses. I They still had pit ponies up Norman Pagett caught a twenty- think that was caused by either until the closure. I think there one pounder. It was mounted and sandstone or clay digging a long were about 70 of them. They put in the Granville Lodge club time ago when bricks were made seldom came up alive once they down at the furnaces for years. I down in Donnington. Before were down the Pit. If they did don’t know what happened to it, Barratt’s had that field the hole they’d finished their working days the Granville Lodge has been was deepened by something like and were put out to graze. If any knocked down. 12 feet when huge blocks of were in a bad condition they were There still are a lot of pike in sandstone were taken out for just put down. Although they the pool. And roach, carp and building Castle Farm Way, the were blind when they came up, tench. You can still fish in the pool road to the Castle Farm their sight would eventually come but you have to be a member of Interchange. There was wet back as a rule after a few weeks. the Telford Angling Society; they ground needed better drainage. There were the Old Pit Stables in 4 own the fishing rights to it, and We came to the Lower or 5 acres of ground around them the lake down by the Castle Farm Woodhouse Farm in 1936. I think in Priorslee Avenue, 50 yards Interchange, I think. I put a load of the Pit closed in 1940 or 1941. I below the Clock Tower, right golden carp in Hangie’s more than suppose there were 300 or 400 alongside the road. That’s where 30 years ago. I bought them off a men still working at the time it they kept the old ponies. chap who drove the milk wagon to closed. It had become The Glen (the house now Wolverhampton. He asked me if I uneconomical to mine; there was occupied as the doctor’s surgery) wanted any, they were only four plenty of coal still down there, but was last lived in by Ernie Tranter’s inches long, so I had fifty for the men had to go too far son Paul. Before that, Paul’s about 2d each! underground to fetch it. There grandfather lived in it. And before The Woodhouse Pit was dug weren’t any mining cars to carry that, in the 1930s and during the for coal. I don’t suppose anyone them so they’d have to walk all the wartime, a chap named Mr Beech alive today can remember way from the shaft to the face, lived in it when he was the Hangman’s working as a pit, but I which could take an hour or so to Surveyor for the Pit. When Mr think iron ore was mined there do. Falls were quite common with Beech lived there the garden was and taken down to the Lodge men getting buried, sometimes most beautiful in Springtime. All Brickle or Furnaces at Donnington fatally. There had been other rock plants and tulips. After over the A5. There was quite a accidents with explosions, falling Church on a Sunday night folks deep hole on the field where cages or tubs going out of control. used to walk passed it just to have

The Lilleshall Company’s operations at Snedshill and Priorslee; the photograph is thought to have been taken in the 1930s. The area contained the Priorslee Furnaces, Steel Rolling Mill, Drawing Office, light engineering workshops, etc., and is now occupied by Central Park offices, the M54 Motorway and Telford Central railay station. St Peter’s Church is just right of top centre and chimneys in Snedshill Trading Estate can just be seen at top left.

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a look, loads of them. I never had and into railway trucks. much to do with the church or Mrs Flossie Edwards managed MIXED MEMORIES chapel in Priorslee, only for the works canteen. It was a great funerals and the like. I went to the place to go. I was very friendly church in St Georges. with her son Albert. We always his section is an amalgamation The Coal Wharf was on the got fed well when we went there. of memories from a variety of other side of the road below the And as for the Maggot Factory! Tpeople with Priorslee Pigeon Box. There was a level Well, it was just over the road connections. While it has not always crossing there, and another across from the works canteen. If we lost been possible to verify every the main road. Coal was taken a calf it would be easier to put it revelation, and memories sometimes down from the Woodhouse, the into the boot of the car and take it have a trick of confusing one event Granville and other pits to the down to the maggot factory than with another, the majority of station at Hollinswood, then to dig a hole and bury it. They information contained here has been distributed it on the main railway sold the maggots to anglers and corroborated from other sources. line elsewhere. Hollinswood pet shops all over the country. Obviously, tales passed down from Station wasn’t really a station, They put them in steel boxes one generation to another can simply more of a marshalling yard. before putting them on the train. be regarded as embellished hearsay, During the War the Lilleshall The maggots were all colours; red, but nevertheless are still valid in Company used to sell surplus coal yellow, blue. Beautiful! order that the modern reader will be at the Coal Wharf. There were also I always went to Wellington on able to understand the conditions and railway lines going straight into a Thursday morning with my circumstances which initially gave the Steel Rolling Mill at Sneds Hill, mother to do the banking and get rise to those stories. and another crossing near the the wages. One Thursday I had a MANY OF the older residents Greyhound pub. calf to take to Jack Hodson so we can remember the overhead water I remember the noise from the went to drop it off on the way. We troughs, suspended on iron Priorslee Blast Furnaces, which met Jack, with his greasy old supports and wooden posts, kept me awake when we first pullover on, standing in the which came from the Lawn Pit. came here. There were two blast doorway to the factory. I told him The troughs followed the old engines for the steel mill, going all what we’d got and he said to take mineral railway line through the night long. And when they it round the back where they did Village, over some of the gardens, charged up the cupolas the glow all the skinning. Oh, dear! My along the edge of the mound right lit up the sky with an orangy-red mother couldn’t eat anything for a by the Village (upon which a colour. They were still working fortnight! The sight was disgusting cutting had been made to support during the War, but I can’t and so was the smell! And the the troughs instead of using the remember if they actually allowed maggotmen were standing there, posts unnecessarily), across the them to work at night. I can also wrapping animals’ intestines Shifnal Road high enough to allow remember them pouring molten around their arms like rope! tall vehicles to pass underneath, metal into the sand beds to make Another time when I went and finally down by the side of pig iron. It was hard work, down there he invited me in for a the road to the furnaces. The water moulding and puddling. They’d cup of tea and a sandwich. I ran quite quickly and children have to carry the bars, still warm declined! often paddled in the trough on the and weighing up to a The maggot factory closed mound, even though the water hundredweight each, with their down some five years ago, and had a yellowish tinge. arms protected by their aprons, Jack moved to near the Granville It is likely that the furnaces from the beds, up wooden planks Colliery. He’s now got a really used the water as a coolant in the smart purpose-built steel-making process, although unit. they did have a cement works Considering the there as well later on. The sound years of protests of steam coming from there at against the terrible night could often be heard. All the smell which came troughs were scrapped during the from the Sneds Hill War. factory, he’s probably The mineral lines from the in the best place now. Lawn and the Woodhouse Pits ran We could even smell down to the Coal Wharf on the it at the Farm. It filled other side of a hedge by the two the whole area when Company houses below the the wind was in the Pigeon Box. One of the two houses right (or wrong!) was a police house, possibly Lower Woodhouse Farmyard direction. occupied at one time by a Mr

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Birdshaw. The railway lines joined Unfortunately the local roads had once been turned by mules or one another inside the wharf. No- were not always kept in good ponies to lower men into the pit one was allowed in there, it was condition. Station Hill in was still there in the 1920s. The Company property. Sometimes Oakengates, for example, was very ginny had a large drum in the children would sneak in and play rough, full of holes that quickly centre with a chain coiled around there, but when Constable filled with water whenever it it, and as the mule walked around Birdshaw came and stood on the rained. It wasn’t the sort of road in a circle the chain would be let perimeter, they’d be off! The police people liked to walk up, especially out to lower a bucket containing a station was later moved to when they’d got their shopping man down into the shaft below. Freeston Avenue. with them. Usually they’d walk After the miners had finished The policemen walked the area down into Oakengates and ride their shift they’d wait their turn to or rode their bikes around making back. It wasn’t until well after the be brought back to the surface – their presence known – and felt. War ended that the roads seemed and hope the chains didn’t break! Towards the end of their to improve to any great extent. Water was pumped out and occupation at Priorslee they had a Carrying passengers up the carried away in the troughs to stop police car, a Wolsey with a bell on Greyhound Bank from Oakengates the water levels in the ground the front and an ancient handset in horse-drawn wagons during the rising and flooding the radio. 1920s and perhaps earlier was Woodhouse mines. Children often walked along something of an experience. As Another mineral railway line the railway lines despite notices they approached the bend on the ran parallel to the Shifnal Road. warning them that, under the hill, several passengers had to get Trucks were often parked there Railways Acts, it was private out to give the horse a chance, and when not in use. Several folk can property and trespassers would be sometimes had to push as well! remember there being a bee-hive prosecuted. T A Freeston’s name Horses were excellent at shaped shelter next to the level was on the signs. knowing their own jobs. The crossing at the Coal Wharf on the The Company wanted to coalmerchants’ and bread delivery Pigeon Box side. The main road demolish everything at the Coal horses knew their customers so from the Telford Mark roundabout Wharf, level it off and build small well that they would amble along joins the Priorslee Roundabout factory units. This was just about to the next delivery and stop roughly where the shelter was. the time that Telford Development automatically, missing non- An employee of the Company Corporation was created, and they customers houses on the way. If a was paid to sit in the shelter and refused planning permission. new man didn’t know the route, step outside to flag down the There is a traffic island there they would! traffic whenever a train was due. instead, the Priorslee Roundabout. The wagonettes used by the Almost all vehicles were horse- The Corporation were also pioneers of public transport had a drawn, including farm machinery, responsible for many other canvas roof pulled over wooden until well after the War. The gates buildings being demolished, such hoops. Sometimes, when it rained, of the two level crossings would as the old castle-like Company the passengers pushed the canvas be opened until the mineral trucks drawing office opposite where up from the inside, starting from had passed over. Then the gates Furnace Road joins the Holyhead the rear and working forward would be closed and the man Road on Sneds Hill and the until the water reached the front, would go back into his shelter. removal of the David and and the poor driver would be That same main road follows Sampson blowing engines from sitting there not knowing what the line of the old mineral railway the furnaces to the Blists Hill was going on until they shouted northwards to the point where it Museum. out, ‘All together, boys!’ and they’d branched off to the east towards The Company never seems to tip the water all over him! Rotten the Woodhouse Pit. There was have paid very good wages (even thing to do, but they had their fun! once a mound by the mineral line as late as 1969 when the author The Lawn Pit ceased drawing where corn was grown, but in worked as a fitter’s mate during coal sometime around the turn of 1915 it apparently sank down and the college holidays he was only the century, as did the Stafford Pit. became a pool. This was probably paid £12.00 for a 40-hour week on The Lawn Engine House had a caused by mining subsidence. the night shift). Consequently Boulton-Watt beam engine and the During dry summers it was many employees did other work boiler house had a chimney stack possible to see the old fence posts, to make ends meet. A few of the and four or five boilers, but there which had surrounded the field, colliers started a form of public was no cover to shelter the stokers sticking up out of the water. transport using horse-drawn such as there were at other boiler One of the other pools to the wagonettes. Some made a few houses. There were also offices south of the Woodhouse Pit was shillings each week by delivering and other assorted buildings and a said to have had two pit shafts in fresh fish or greengrocery. In the shaft covered over with iron the middle of it; whether this was pre-war days every penny plates. the place where Woodhouse counted. Even the ginny (gin-trap) that Number 2 Pit was, or some other Priorslee Remembered 21 Priorslee Remembered - SGPPC version_Layout 1 23/07/2018 15:30 Page 22

unnamed pit from years before. away as the Pigeon Box. Oak pit the area belonged to or was leased Old men said folk weren’t to go props were reckoned to last up to by the Lilleshall Company. swimming there because it was 100 years before they were no The Woodhouse Pit was lit up too dangerous. longer safe, or as safe as anything at night with electric lights The Corporation bulldozed the could be in the mines. powered by the pit’s own surrounding mounds away and Long ago the Village was a generator and boilers which may filled in the pool, and at the same fairly small place with a few large also have supplied the Hall time created an artificial mound houses and a couple of rows of besides, in later years, operating planted with trees on the western labourers’ cottages. Stable Row the winding gear over the shafts. end of the Flash where the mineral wasn’t a stable at all, just There were two pits at the line had been. Perhaps it was to labourers’ cottages remodelled Woodhouse – Number 1 and shield St Georges and Sneds Hill after the Corporation came. Number 2, but Number 2 closed from the new estates. Or vice Another row, no longer there, had down years before Number 1, versa. Or both. They also wash-houses at the back. The perhaps as a result of action amalgamated the Flash and the actual stable was down the road during the General Strike or ‘Rough’ to form one complete pool below the Clock Tower. It was because it became uneconomic; it, with an island in the middle, a quite large and had a porch for the too, had winding gear. good thing for the wildlife. blacksmith to do his work. The job of Banksman at the Pits Years ago everyone went Apparently there was also a fully partly involved tidying up all the swimming in the oblong pool (the equipped blacksmith’s shop and dirt and rubbish from the mine. ‘Rough’) where the water was forge on the Shifnal Road. The stokers were only allowed clear. There weren’t any public One of the local bus companies very poor grade coal slack mixed baths they could go to – and it was was J Jones and Sons, sometimes with dirt to heat the boilers, and free! There was a little pump known as Priory Motors, which the steam pressure had to be house with a small boiler on the was based in the Village and maintained all the time. They also embankment next to it and the served the area for many years. had to look after the pumps and water seems to have been Like several other similar the large fans used for ventilating circulated constantly. companies belonging to the the shafts. If anything had failed The square-shaped reservoir at Shropshire Omnibus Association or pressure was allowed to reduce, the Lawn Pit had a pinkish colour based at Oakengates, they began the methane gases in the pits to it, probably the result of by using horse-drawn vehicles. would have built up. And then, of ironstone in the proximity. It, too, These companies not only course, a little spark could have was used for occasional swimming provided local passenger services proved disastrous. It is thought by local youths. to places like St Georges, that the engines at The Several people have mentioned Oakengates, Donnington and, Woodhouse Pit were sold as scrap that one of the pit mounds near later, Wellington, but also laid on during the War. the Village sank about 10 feet special excursions for the general There were a lot of old pits in around 1950. It was thought that public to places further afield. the whole area, including Sneds there had been a large cavern-like Practically every man in Hill and St Georges, most without hole underneath supported by oak Priorslee worked full time at the a name. Geological maps show a pit props, apparently where the Pits, the furnaces or another of the highly complex structure of pit ponies had been kept when the Lilleshall Company’s industrial faulted coal seams in this part of pit there was working, and the interests. If they didn’t, they the East Shropshire Coalfield, ground above collapsed. The wouldn’t have been able to have a where the tendency was for rumblings could be heard as far house here. Virtually everything in shallower seams to be found in the

Lilleshall Company No. 6 Engine, 1903 Lilleshall Co. officials and wives at Priorslee Hall, 1923

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south-western and western end of with the legendary St George nor the Field and gradually getting OTHER FACTS his dragon) at the time when a much deeper towards the east and new parish was created in 1861. Sned’s Hill (now condensed northeast. hese are a few additional facts into Snedshill) is probably named These pits around Priorslee which shed more light on the after a landowning Anglo-Saxon wouldn’t have lasted very long history of the Priorslee area because the seams were too T called Sned or Sneed, or could be and show how much in the way of derived from the Saxon word narrow and difficult to extract. heritage has been lost in recent years. Even old Ordnance Survey maps ‘sneed’ indicating a ‘detached plot don’t show every one, so there THE ORIGINAL name for St of land’. Until recently, Snedshill could be several unsuspecting folk Georges was Pain’s Lane and was regared as part of Priorslee. with a mine shaft beneath their comprised a disjointed number of Priorslee, known by various living room. It is doubtful that cottages spread along the old forms throughout the centuries their title deeds allow them to Roman Road from Red Hill (Prior’s Leigh, Priors’ Lea, etc.), is extract coal for their own use, towards Oakengates. In fact, the so called because land here was especially in a smokeless zone! Romans didn’t create the road now leased from Wombridge Priory, Miners and employees of other known as Watling Street but rather although it is doubtful that any of Lilleshall Company works were improved an ancient British cattle the canons in residence at the always given a metal token, route (’Sarn Wyddelin’) connecting Priory ever set foot in such a lowly numbered individually and Ireland to the continent. place except to attend services at stamped with the name of the pit Pain’s Lane became St Georges their outlying twelfth century and the company which owned it when the church took its chapel. (or the name of the factory dedication name from George The chapel stood on ground concerned), when reporting for Granville Sutherland-Leveson- opposite to and partly in the car work each day. When they came Gower, Earl Gower (1850–1858), park of the Lion Inn until it back to the surface or finished eldest son of the 3rd Duke (then wasdemolished in the 1830s after work for the day, they handed the Lord Stafford), who died in which St Peter’s Church was token in at the office to confirm childhood (nothing directly to do erected as a larger replacement. that they had safely returned. Anyone caught abusing this essential safety precaution would be fined or dismissed.

Token for Snedshill Furnaces The former Priorslee Chapel, originally in Shifnal parish

An assortment of Lilleshall Company workers’ safety and pay tokens

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The Priorslee district, including The creation of small villages Snedshill, has been the home to gradually grew into the townships numerous outstanding industrial we see today. They contain an activities for centuries, particularly eclectic range of design styles in those taken under the wing of and keeping with changing needs. expanded by Lilleshall Company, Whereas a few heritage buildings which existed from 1805 to 1969. have been sympathetically altered, Some enterprises functioned many have been demolished for many years and their origins unnecessarily, as if to deny their predate 1805: one such was the importance or existence, without ‘Iron Works, Shifnal, near considering alternative uses. Wellington, Shropshire’ (bottom More than 50 years have Building stones deemed to left) which blazed an iron-making passed since Telford Development have come from the chapel were trail as important as any other in Corporation embarked on its reused in walls at the Lion and the area encompassed within the devastating programme of two rare carved heads were Telford conurbation. heritage demolition. unearthed in the pub garden a few Centuries of successful Most regrettably, that years ago; they are currently on enterprise benefitted the district programme has continued display in the main bar. The heads enormously. Jobs were provided, throughout ensuing years under suggest a degree of artistry in the along with accommodation; the authority of Telford councils, design of the chapel and that it increasing population encouraged their leaders and planners. had been expensive to construct. other small businesses, such as Heritage preservation is low The oldest known human shops, to thrive. down the list of importance, partly construction in the area was the Businessmen dug deep into because of malicious design but Roman transit fort called Uxacona their pockets to pay for the social also the lack of understanding the on Red Hill (now partially amenities like churches, chapels, difference between the meanings submerged under a Severn Trent schools, hospitals, meeting places of ‘heritage’ and ‘history’. reservoir). It was the last post (like Institutes and church halls) History is an ongoing process, before heading west towards and other public buildings, all of recorded and updated as time Uriconium, the fourth largest town which added to those vital goes by. in Roman Britain whose ruins can heritage buildings which enabled Heritage has to be protected be visited at Wroxeter where they workers and inhabitants to and maintained; once demolished, are looked after by Historic develop a strong sense of it has gone forever and cannot be England (formerly English community. resurrected or replaced. Heritage). Interestingly, the Romans are known to have worked coal in our area.

Snedshill Iron Works (laterPriorslee Furnaces), c.1821 Demolition of Snedshill Trading Estate begins, 1967 DISCLAIMER and COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Every effort has been made to ensure that the information in this publication is correct at the time of writing. Neither the author nor St Georges & Priorslee Parish Council can accept responsibility for any errors or omissions, nor do opinions expressed necessarily reflect the official view of either party. All text and photographs are copyright of the author and must not be reproduced or posted on social media sites without prior permission and, if obtained, due credit being attributed. Please address correspondence to: Parish Clerk, The Parish Centre, Grove Street, St Georges, Telford TF2 9L.

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