Howle, also spelt ''Howl'', is a small village in

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to th ...

, England, in a rural area some five miles to the north-west of the town of Newport. Although it is part of the

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 ...

of Chetwynd, the nearest village is

Child's Ercall Child's Ercall ( ) is a village and civil parish in Shropshire, England. It is located in a rural area between the small towns of Market Drayton and Newport: the civil parish had a total population of 599 at the 2001 census,

. The village name has been variously suggested as being derived from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

personal name element ''Hyge-''Bowcock, E. W. ''Shropshire place names'', Wilding & Son, 1923, pp.125-6 or from a word meaning "hill".Raven, M. ''A Guide to Shropshire'', 2005, p.96 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 ...

'' survey it was recorded as the manor of ''Hugle''.Gelling and Foxall, ''The place-names of Shropshire, Volume 1'', EPNS, 1990, p.161 Howle is on the edge of Ercall Heath, which was largely forested until

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 ...

and has been partly brought into cultivation since; the River Meese flows nearby. There is a

holy well A holy well or sacred spring is a well, spring or small pool of water revered either in a Christian or pagan context, sometimes both. The water of holy wells is often thought to have healing qualities, through the numinous presence of its gua ...

, formerly used by those seeking cures, south of Howle near the road to Tibberton.Raven, p.202

References

Villages in Shropshire {{shropshire-geo-stub

See also

References