Ellerton is a small hamlet 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 ...

, England. It lies in a rather isolated rural area several miles north of the town of

Newport Newport most commonly refers to: *Newport, Wales *Newport, Rhode Island, US Newport or New Port may also refer to: Places Asia *Newport City, Metro Manila, a Philippine district in Pasay Europe Ireland *Newport, County Mayo, a town on the ...

, close to the village of Sambrook, and is part of the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of Parish (administrative division), administrative parish used for Local government in England, local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below district ...

Cheswardine Cheswardine is a rural village and civil parish in north east Shropshire, England. The village lies close to the border with Staffordshire and is about 8 miles north of Newport and 5 miles south east of Market Drayton. At the 2001 Census, the pa ...

. Its name may be derived from the Old English ''alor'' (

alder Alders are trees comprising the genus ''Alnus'' in the birch family Betulaceae. The genus comprises about 35 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, a few reaching a large size, distributed throughout the north temperate zone with a few sp ...

), and ''tun'' (farm or enclosure); "the farm at the alder tree".Bowcock, E. W. ''Shropshire place names'', Wilding & Son, 1923, p.178 The hamlet is clustered around Ellerton Hall, an early 19th-century manor built on the site of an earlier house.Raven, M. ''A Guide to Shropshire'', 2005, p.78 Next to the road is a large

millpond A mill pond (or millpond) is a body of water used as a reservoir for a water-powered mill. Description Mill ponds were often created through the construction of a mill dam or weir (and mill stream) across a waterway. In many places, the co ...

fed by the Goldstone Brook, with a derelict

waterwheel A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with a number of blades or buc ...

. King Charles I was supposed to have drunk from a well here, later known as the King's Well.Bord, C. ''Sacred waters: holy wells and water lore in Britain and Ireland'', Paladin, 1986, p.118 The well is still located by the side of a lane to the east of Ellerton hamlet, near the Kingswell Cottages.

References

Villages in Shropshire {{shropshire-geo-stub

See also

References