Billingsley is a small village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

in Shropshire, England. It is located 6 miles (9.7 km) south of

Bridgnorth Bridgnorth is a town in Shropshire, England. The River Severn splits it into High Town and Low Town, the upper town on the right bank and the lower on the left bank of the River Severn. The population at the 2011 Census was 12,079. Histor ...

and lies in the diocese of

Hereford Hereford () is a cathedral city, civil parish and the county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, south-west of Worcester and north-west of Gloucester. With a population ...

. The village is situated on the B4363 road, south of

Deuxhill Deuxhill () is a hamlet and very small civil parish in Shropshire, England. The nearest town is Bridgnorth Bridgnorth is a town in Shropshire, England. The River Severn splits it into High Town and Low Town, the upper town on the right b ...

. Between the two parishes flows the Horsford Brook. The village itself is in an area covering approximately 1302 acres. The eastern boundary of the village is formed by the Borle Brook. The parish is directly above coal measures that belong to the

Wyre Forest __NOTOC__ Wyre Forest is a large, semi-natural (partially unmanaged) woodland and forest measuring which straddles the borders of Worcestershire and Shropshire, England. Knowles Mill, a former corn mill owned by the National Trust, lies wi ...

Coalfield.

History

The name ‘Billingsley’ is a

Saxon The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...

name and is said to mean 'the clearing of the sword'. It is argued that it was called this due to the shape of a wood clearing by Saxons who first settled there in the 7th century. Billingsley is not named in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

because it was actually a detached portion of the Manor of Morville. It was granted to the Abbey of

Shrewsbury Shrewsbury ( , also ) is a market town, civil parish, and the county town of Shropshire, England, on the River Severn, north-west of London; at the 2021 census, it had a population of 76,782. The town's name can be pronounced as either 'Sh ...

by Earl Roger de Montgomery. Then in 1147, it passed hands from

Shrewsbury Abbey The Abbey Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Shrewsbury (commonly known as Shrewsbury Abbey) is an ancient foundation in Shrewsbury, the county town of Shropshire, England. The Abbey was founded in 1083 as a Benedictine monastery by the Norm ...

to the Abbey of Seez in

Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...

. After this it passed to the de Beysin family, Morehall family, the Clopton family and the Harewell family. Billingsley was predominately an agricultural village whose inhabitants led a fairly relaxed rural life. However, there is evidence to show of

iron working Ferrous metallurgy is the metallurgy of iron and its alloys. The earliest surviving prehistoric iron artifacts, from the 4th millennium BC in Egypt, were made from meteoritic iron-nickel. It is not known when or where the smelting of iron fro ...

. In the 17th century, the woods were being occupied for the making of

charcoal Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, cal ...

. In the 18th century, coal and

ironstone Ironstone is a sedimentary rock, either deposited directly as a ferruginous sediment or created by chemical replacement, that contains a substantial proportion of an iron ore compound from which iron (Fe) can be smelted commercially. Not to be con ...

were being mined. In the mid-1790s, Billingsley was exchanged hands to Sir William Pulteney who was the MP for

. He owned many estates throughout the country and was particularly interested in exploiting the mineral reserves that lay in Billingsley. The colliery struggled and in 1802, MacNab (one of Pulterney’s associates) fled the country for fear of his creditors. Then in 1811, Billingsley’s industrial period ended with the bankruptcy of George Stokes. A brick works opened in Billingsley in the late 1860s and this continued until the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. There were further prospects for coal and as a result, some housing was built for the miners. However, most of the miners were housed in

Highley Highley is a large village in Shropshire, England, on the west bank of the River Severn and 7 miles south east of Bridgnorth. The closest cities being Wolverhampton and Birmingham. History Highley began as a rural farming community, includin ...

. This was the beginning of the Billingsley Colliery Company but this also suffered from ill-success and closed in 1921.

St. Mary’s Church

The church is located on the B4363 which runs through the village, about 2.5 km North West of Billingsley village. Billingsley Church was originally built in around 1140 and is classed as a Grade II listed building. The Churchyard alone is the home to two incredibly old yew trees. Both are mentioned in the National Register of Ancient Yews and are also mentioned in Andrew Morton’s ‘Trees of Shropshire’. According to the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

, Billingsley Church has an ‘unusual’ Jacobean double pulpit from around 1620. However the front of the Church contains mainly original Norman stonework. The Easter Sepulchre dates from around 1320. The registers of the parish date back to 1627. The Church was rebuilt in 1875 after a fire and at the time cost around £1000 for the renovation work to be carried out. Billingsley Church, as it currently stands, is dedicated to St. Mary and is made up of a south porch, chancel, nave and a bell tower containing two bells. The church contains both a memorial tablet to and a battlefield cross from the grave in France of Lieutenant H.W. Gibbs who was fatally wounded during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

in 1918.

Occupations

This is a chart showing the occupational structure of the parish of Billingsley in 1881 – comparing men and women. It gives a valuable insight into the village at this time. It uses the '24 orders' that were used for the original published reports in 1881 plus an 'unknown' category. From the chart, it can be seen that the majority of men worked in agriculture which suggests that it was a predominantly agricultural and working class village. From the graph it can be seen that there are more men working than women. However, there are more women than men working in domestic services or offices.
Below is a pie chart showing the percentage of males aged 20 and over in 9 occupational categories in the village of Billingsley in 1831. Agriculture stands out again as the major occupation in the parish, with over half of the males in the village aged 20 and over taking up this occupation.

Population

According to the 2001 census Billingsley has a population of 181. This consists of 69 households, containing 86 females and 95 males. In 1801, the population was around 320 and rose to just over 425 by 1811. The population then decreased rapidly between 1811 and 1821 to just below 180 people. The population slowly decreased again to just over 100 by 1901. It then increased to just below 180 again but then began to decrease slowly again until 1961 when it was just below 90 people.

Housing

The chart below shows the total number of houses in the village of Billingsley from 1830 to 1960. In 1831 there were 32 houses in the village. This gradually decreased until 1841 to 29 houses. This rose again over the next 10 years and then started to decrease again until 1901 when there were 21 houses. The number of houses increased yet again until 1931 to 32 (the same as 100 years earlier) and has been gently fluctuating around 30 since then. There was a small housing estate built in Billingsley in the 1960s however the village does still remain small and rural.

Notable people

Thomas Hyde Thomas Hyde (29 June 163618 February 1703) was an English linguist, historian, librarian, classicist, and orientalist. His chief work was the 1700 'On the Ancient Religion of the Persians'' the first attempt to use Arab and Persian sources ...

(1636-1703), orientalist, was born at Billingsley, his father then rector of the parish. *

Christopher Gill Christopher John Fred Gill RD (born 28 October 1936) is a British politician, and a former member of the National Executive Committee of the UK Independence Party (UKIP). He is the president of The Freedom Association (TFA). A former Conserva ...

(born 1936),

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

MP for

Ludlow Ludlow () is a market town in Shropshire, England. The town is significant in the history of the Welsh Marches and in relation to Wales. It is located south of Shrewsbury and north of Hereford, on the A49 road which bypasses the town. The t ...

1987-2001 and later

UK Independence Party The UK Independence Party (UKIP; ) is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two members of Parliament and was the largest par ...

politician, lived at Billingsley Hall Farm in 1988. *

Liam Treadwell Liam Treadwell (3 January 198623 June 2020) was an English National Hunt jockey, who won over 300 races between 2009 and 2019. He won the 2009 Grand National on Mon Mome at odds of 100/1, and also won the United House Gold Cup, Byrne Group P ...

(1986-2020),

National Hunt In horse racing in the United Kingdom, France and Republic of Ireland, National Hunt racing requires horses to jump fences and ditches. National Hunt racing in the UK is informally known as "jumps" and is divided into two major distinct branches: ...

jockey, died in the village.

References

External links

Billingsley Parish Council
website {{authority control Villages in Shropshire Civil parishes in Shropshire