Plowden is a

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...

in the

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

Lydbury North Lydbury North ( ) is a village and a geographically large civil parishes in England, civil parish in south Shropshire, England. The population of the parish at the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 census was 695. The parish is locally called L ...

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. It is in the valley of the

River Onny The River Onny is a river in Shropshire, England. It is a major tributary of the River Teme. Etymology The river's name derives from Welsh and means the river on which ash trees (Welsh: ''onnau'') grew. Course The river has its sources in th ...

and lies 3 miles east of

Bishop's Castle Bishop's Castle is a market town in the south west of Shropshire, England. According to the 2011 Census it had a population of 1,893. Bishop's Castle is east of the Wales–England border, about north-west of Ludlow and about south-west of ...

. Plowden was one of the stations on the Bishops Castle Railway, which closed in 1935. Plowden Hall is a grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

, being a timber-framed building dating in part from about 1300, and is described in the novel '' John Inglesant'' by Joseph Henry Shorthouse, who drew the place as ''Lydiard''. Its owners, the Plowden family, remained

Roman Catholics The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

after the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

and there is a Roman Catholic church of St Walburga in Plowden. When

Edwin Plowden Edwin Noel Auguste Plowden, Baron Plowden, Order of the British Empire, GBE, Order of the Bath, KCB (6 January 1907 – 15 February 2001) was a British industrialist and public servant in the Treasury. Background and career Plowden was born in ...

was awarded a

life peerage In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. Life peers are appointed by the monarch on the advice of the prime minister. With the exception of the D ...

in 1959 he took the title of Baron Plowden of Plowden in the county of Salop. GWR Hall class locomotive 4956 was named after the hall. Thomas Falkner,

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

missionary and explorer in South America, spent his last years as chaplain at Plowden Hall until his death there in 1784. Mentioned under Lydbury North, in whose parish Plowden lay.

References

Villages in Shropshire {{Shropshire-geo-stub

See also

References