Asterley is a village in

Shropshire Shropshire (; abbreviated SalopAlso used officially as the name of the county from 1974–1980. The demonym for inhabitants of the county "Salopian" derives from this name.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West M ...

, England. Its name, derived from

Old English Old English ( or , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

, means "the eastern clearing in the forest".Raven, M. ''A Guide to Shropshire'', 2005, p.16 It was historically a

township A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...

of the large parish of

Pontesbury Pontesbury ( ) is a village and civil parish in Shropshire, and is approximately eight miles southwest of Shrewsbury. In the 2011 census, the village had a population of 1,873 and the parish had a population of 3,227. The village of Minsterley ...

,Pontesbury
,

GENUKI GENUKI is a genealogy web portal, run as a charitable trust. It "provides a virtual reference library of genealogical information of particular relevance to the UK and Ireland". It gives access to a large collection of information, with the emphas ...

and is still 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

of Pontesbury. It consists of some 50 houses, including some timber- and cruck-framed dwellings. There are four farms operating within the village and an equestrian estate. There is a brick former

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

mission church in the village, built in 1869 but a private house since about 1990,. Its churchyard contains the graves of two

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

soldiers who both died in 1940, which are registered and maintained by the

Commonwealth War Graves Commission The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of Commonwealth of Nations mil ...

.
CWGC Cemetery Report. Dates obtained from casualty record. Date accessed 19 September 2012. There is a functioning Methodist chapel which is part of the Shropshire and Marches Methodist Circuit. Eight of the Methodist churches in the area voted on 15 July 2019 to become an amalgamation of chapels to be called Rea Valley Methodist Churches keeping each chapel operational as a cooperative. In this new Methodist Society, Asterley will become a Celebration Chapel and offer special worship services four to five times a year. The chapel was built in 1834. A stone

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

memorial tablet is next to its entrance door outside and indoors is a framed Roll of Honour to local men who died in World War II. The village had a small and possibly shortlived

Latter Day Saints The Latter Day Saint movement (also called the LDS movement, LDS restorationist movement, or Smith–Rigdon movement) is the collection of independent church groups that trace their origins to a Christian Restorationist movement founded b ...

congregation in 1851. The village has had two pubs, The Royal Oak and The Windmill Inn, a shop and a school house which are all now private houses. In the 18th and 19th centuries the village was the centre of a small-scale

coal mining Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...

and brick-making industry. It has a long established connection with farming with many established farmhouses being present in the village an immediate surroundings. In 1944, a Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter crashed in what was a deep pond which was originally a marl pit. The pilot survived by jumping by parachute from the stricken aircraft. The aircraft remains buried in the now dried out and filled in pond. Outside the village is a rare survival, a

windmill A windmill is a machine operated by the force of wind acting on vanes or sails to mill grain (gristmills), pump water, generate electricity, or drive other machinery. Windmills were used throughout the high medieval and early modern period ...

built in 1809.Asterley
National Mills Weekend It was restored in the 1980s.

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Villages in Shropshire {{Shropshire-geo-stub

See also

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