Donnington is an area / housing estate located in the borough of
Telford and Wrekin
Telford and Wrekin is a borough and unitary authority in Shropshire, England. In 1974, a non-metropolitan district of Shropshire was created called The Wrekin. In 1998, the district became a unitary authority and was renamed "Telford and Wrekin", ...
and
ceremonial county
The counties and areas for the purposes of the lieutenancies, also referred to as the lieutenancy areas of England and informally known as ceremonial counties, are areas of England to which lords-lieutenant are appointed. Legally, the areas i ...
of
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 ...
, England. The population of Donnington Ward was 6,883 at the 2011 Census.
History
Before the Romans arrived in Britain the area around Donnington was a mixture of forest and open rough ground in some respects more suitable to sheep rather than humans. Further down Donnington's low lying valley, north of Donnington, the ground was marshy wetland habitat; today this has been drained for farming. This wet moorland provided protection for pre-Roman
Celts
The Celts (, see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples () are. "CELTS location: Greater Europe time period: Second millennium B.C.E. to present ancestry: Celtic a collection of Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancien ...
living between 300BC and 100AD near the
hill fort
A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post- ...
at the now small settlement of Wall north of Donnington.
The original Donnington village was to the northeast of the current centre of Donnington. A map of Shropshire by
John Speed
John Speed (1551 or 1552 – 28 July 1629) was an English cartographer, chronologer and historian of Cheshire origins.S. Bendall, 'Speed, John (1551/2–1629), historian and cartographer', ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (OUP 2004/2 ...
from 1610 refers to Donnington as ''Dunnyton'', the ending ''ington'' meaning in Anglo Saxon "Dunny's homestead or farm". This farm was most likely leased from the Saxon Minster of St Alkmund's in
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 'S ...
who, when the
Normans
The Normans ( Norman: ''Normaunds''; french: Normands; la, Nortmanni/Normanni) were a population arising in the medieval Duchy of Normandy from the intermingling between Norse Viking settlers and indigenous West Franks and Gallo-Romans. T ...
arrived, held the land around Lilleshall (according to the
Domesday Survey
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
Wil ...
(1086)). Following the
Norman conquest of England in 1066 the land was eventually passed to Godbald, religious adviser to the Norman magnate
Roger de Montgomerie, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury
Roger de Montgomery (died 1094), also known as Roger the Great, was the first Earl of Shrewsbury, and Earl of Arundel, in Sussex. His father was Roger de Montgomery, seigneur of Montgomery, a member of the House of Montgomerie, and was probab ...
; Godbald's descendants, the Belmeis family, endowed the land in 1145 to the Christian Augustinian foundation from North East France who built
Lilleshall Abbey
Lilleshall Abbey was an Augustinian abbey in Shropshire, England, today located north of Telford. It was founded between 1145 and 1148 and followed the austere customs and observance of the Abbey of Arrouaise in northern France. It suffered ...
. Over 400 years later the
dissolution of the monasteries by
Henry VIII
Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disagr ...
ended centuries of church dominated society and the land was purchased in 1539 by James Leveson, a
Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton () is a City status in the United Kingdom, city, metropolitan borough and administrative centre in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. The population size has increased by 5.7%, from around 249,500 in 2011 United ...
wool merchant and was then passed down his family's inheritance to eventually become part of the
Duke of Sutherland
Duke of Sutherland is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom which was created by William IV in 1833 for George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Marquess of Stafford. A series of marriages to heiresses by members of the Leveson-Gower family made t ...
's estate. Leveson's descendants over the centuries invested heavily in draining the sodden moors to the north of Donnington so they could be farmed and in mining coal from the Donnington Wood coalfield. Locals, mostly men, would have found work in these enterprises and at the local farms.
By the early 20th century Donnington was a minor industrial centre where "Walker's works" (C&W Walker Ltd) iron works produced components of
gasometer
A gas holder or gasholder, also known as a gasometer, is a large container in which natural gas or town gas is stored near atmospheric pressure at ambient temperatures. The volume of the container follows the quantity of stored gas, with pressu ...
s and ship's engines. The Clock Tower restaurant commemorates the landmark Walker's Clock which now sits on a road island near where "Walker's works" once was. This roundabout is just a hundred metres north from the centre of the original village of Donnington. Walker's Clock's distinctive audible blast called the workers living in Donnington and nearby to work and was a time keeper for every one else. At the same location there was, as shown on an Ordnance Survey map from 1833,
Donnington railway station
Donnington railway station was a railway station in Shropshire, England. It was built by the Shropshire Union Railway who opened it in 1849, Passenger service ceased in September 1964, and freight service ceased on 4 October 1965.
Reference ...
with freight and passenger connections to Wellington and
Stafford
Stafford () is a market town and the county town of Staffordshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It lies about north of Wolverhampton, south of Stoke-on-Trent and northwest of Birmingham. The town had a population of 70,145 in ...
; this was closed as part of
Beeching cuts
The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Development of the M ...
in 1964. Only further north, at The Humbers, iron-making is thought to have taken place since the late 16th Century, with the name 'Humbers' deriving from a set of water-driven ‘hammers’ which in 1580 were owned by the
Duke of Sutherland
Duke of Sutherland is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom which was created by William IV in 1833 for George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Marquess of Stafford. A series of marriages to heiresses by members of the Leveson-Gower family made t ...
's Leveson ancestors (whose Lilleshall Ironworks was one of the first blast furnaces in the West Midlands). The Hammers were located on or near the site of a mill on Lubstree Pool, which before the dissolution of the monasteries had belonged to the Canons of the nearby
Lilleshall Abbey
Lilleshall Abbey was an Augustinian abbey in Shropshire, England, today located north of Telford. It was founded between 1145 and 1148 and followed the austere customs and observance of the Abbey of Arrouaise in northern France. It suffered ...
.
At the original Donnington village centre there was a coal wharf linked by rail to the Granville Colliery, Shropshire's last deep coal mine. This mine tapped into the Donnington Wood coalfield (where most of the local coal and ironstone reserves are located and which once came to the surface where it was mined in the 18th Century at Donnington Wood). In 1818 the
Lilleshall Company
The Lilleshall Company was a large engineering company in Oakengates Shropshire founded in 1802. Its operations included mechanical engineering, coal mining, iron and steel making and brickworks. The company was noted for its winding, pumping and ...
began sinking a number of deep mines around Donnington Wood, extracting over 400,000 tons of coal a year from the area by 1871. This industrial heritage links the original Donnington village to the
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
that Telford proudly asserts began with the first large scale smelting of iron using
coke
Coke usually refers to:
* Coca-Cola, a brand of soft drink
**The Coca-Cola Company
* Slang term for cocaine, a psychoactive substance and illicit drug
Substances Soft drinks
* Cola, any soft drink similar to Coca-Cola
* Generic name for a soft d ...
in the
Coalbrookdale
Coalbrookdale is a village in the Ironbridge Gorge in Shropshire, England, containing a settlement of great significance in the history of iron ore smelting. It lies within the civil parish called the Gorge.
This is where iron ore was first s ...
area of Telford.
The current centre of Donnington, near the Parade (as in the photo here), is actually the centre of a planned village initially called New Donnington, a housing development that began in the late 1930s when the
War Office
The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), Ministry of Defence (MoD ...
bought land to house the workers who would be employed at the
Donnington Army Ordnance Depot, which became active in 1940 and remains in use as a logistics base. The new planned town of
Telford
Telford () is a town in the borough of Telford and Wrekin and ceremonial county of Shropshire, England, about east of Shrewsbury, south west of Stafford, north west of Wolverhampton and from Birmingham in the same direction. With an estim ...
that includes Donnington was a separate planned development begun in 1963.
Today
Donnington is a ward of Telford with a long parade of shops down the high street. In the 21st Century this has grown with an
Asda
Asda Stores Ltd. () (often styled as ASDA) is a British supermarket chain. It is headquartered in Leeds, England. The company was founded in 1949 when the Asquith family merged their retail business with the Associated Dairies company of Yorks ...
superstore and an
Aldi
Aldi (stylised as ALDI) is the common company brand name of two German multinational family-owned discount supermarket chains operating over 10,000 stores in 20 countries. The chain was founded by brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht in 1946, whe ...
supermarket added to the
Co-op
A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...
supermarket that already existed. Additionally, a
Home Bargains
Home Bargains is a British variety store chain founded in 1976 by Tom Morris in Liverpool, England, as Home and Bargain. It is the trading name of TJ Morris Ltd.
History
The retailer was founded by owner Tom Morris in 1976 as a single store ...
supermarket has replaced the
Netto then Netto replaced Morrison's supermarket in the centre of Donnington on the site of the old pub "The Champion Jockey".
The
Telford International Railfreight Park (TIRF), opened in 2009 has been developed on a site formerly part of the MoD depot, given rail access by rebuilding of the former
Shropshire Union Railway
The Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company was a Company in England, formed in 1846, which managed several canals and railways. It intended to convert a number of canals to railways, but was leased by the London and North Western Railway (LN ...
west towards
Wellington
Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by m ...
. It is expected this development will attract more light industry to the industrial estates near Donnington.
Donnington is home to a small amateur dramatics company "The Little Theatre" and each year the Broadoaks playing fields play host to a
Guy Fawkes
Guy Fawkes (; 13 April 1570 – 31 January 1606), also known as Guido Fawkes while fighting for the Spanish, was a member of a group of provincial English Catholics involved in the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. He was born and educated ...
fair and
bonfire night
Bonfire Night is a name given to various annual celebrations characterised by bonfires and fireworks. The event celebrates different traditions on different dates, depending on the country. Some of the most popular instances include Guy Fawkes ...
.
Notable people
*
Norman Jones (1932-2013), actor mainly on TV, born in Donnington.
*
Barrington J. Bayley
Barrington J. Bayley (9 April 1937 – 14 October 2008) was an English science fiction writer.
Biography
Bayley was born in Birmingham and educated in Newport, Shropshire. He worked a number of jobs before joining the Royal Air Force during 1 ...
(1937-2008),
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imagination, imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, Paral ...
writer, came to live in Donnington by 1980.
*
Robbie Brightwell
Robert Ian Brightwell MBE (27 October 1939 – 6 March 2022) was a British track and field athlete and silver medallist. (1939-2022),
track and field athlete
Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping even ...
who appeared in the
1964 Olympics 1964 Olympics refers to both:
*The 1964 Winter Olympics, which were held in Innsbruck, Austria
*The 1964 Summer Olympics
The , officially the and commonly known as Tokyo 1964 ( ja, 東京1964), were an international multi-sport event held fro ...
, grew up in Donnington after his family returned to England from India.
See also
*
Listed buildings in Lilleshall and Donnington
Lilleshall and Donnington is a civil parish in the borough of Telford and Wrekin, Shropshire, England. It contains 34 listed buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England. Of these, three are listed at Grade I, ...
*
Muxton
References
External links
The Little Theatre, Donnington
{{authority control
Telford
Villages in Shropshire