Prees () is a village and

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 ...

in north

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 ...

, near the

border Borders are generally defined as geography, geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by polity, political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other administrative divisio ...

between England and Wales. Its name is

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language *Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Foot ...

and means "brushwood".

Prees civil parish

The civil parish includes many other villages and hamlets as well as the namesake Prees Village. Examples include the villages

Prees Higher Heath Prees Higher Heath (commonly shortened to Higher Heath) is a large village located within the civil parishes in England, civil parish of Prees in north Shropshire, England. Location Prees Higher Heath is south of the town of Whitchurch, Shropsh ...

and Prees Green and the hamlets of Prees Lower Heath and Prees Wood (which all share the name Prees). Sandford, Darliston,

Fauls Fauls Green (or Faulsgreen) is a hamlet situated from Prees (and lies in that parish) in rural north Shropshire, England. The placename is commonly abbreviated to Fauls. The Fauls Holy Emmanuel church is located within the hamlet. Thomas Oa ...

and Mickley to the east of the village are also included in the parish. Prees Heath, a nearby village, despite its name, is not part of the civil parish and is actually contained within the neighbouring Whitchurch Rural parish. The population of the civil parish in 2001 was recorded at 2688, increasing to 2,895 Census.

Prees village

Prees is northeast of the small town of

Wem Wem may refer to: * HMS ''Wem'' (1919), a WWI Royal Navy minesweeper * Weem, a village in Perthshire, Scotland * Wem, a small town in Shropshire, England * Wem (musician), hip hop musician WEM may stand for: * County Westmeath County Westmeat ...

. It is also west of

Market Drayton Market Drayton is a market town and civil parish on the banks of the River Tern in Shropshire (district), Shropshire, England. It is close to the Cheshire and Staffordshire borders. It is located between the towns of Whitchurch, Shropshire, Wh ...

and south of Whitchurch. The population in 2001 was recorded at 814, increasing to 939 Census.

History

The church in the village dates back to the 14th century (when the village was commonly spelt "Prys"), however, the tower is younger. Several ancient coins were found on farmland outside Prees in 2017. They included four 300-year-old coins that date to the reign of

James I James I may refer to: People *James I of Aragon (1208–1276) * James I of Sicily or James II of Aragon (1267–1327) * James I, Count of La Marche (1319–1362), Count of Ponthieu * James I, Count of Urgell (1321–1347) *James I of Cyprus (1334� ...

and

Charles I Charles I may refer to: Kings and emperors * Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings * Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily * Charles I of ...

. Also located in Prees in the Prees

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, ...

Primary School and Nursery, a Victorian building that holds much history. There are a number of other churches in the village.

Transport

Roads

The A41 and A49 roads pass on either side of the village.

Railway

West of the village of Prees, but not in the village or the parish as the name would suggest, is the railway station of Prees opened in 1858. It lies on the Welsh Marches Line, between Whitchurch and

. There is a regular service with pre-determined stops. The station is not in the village itself because Captain Black, a wealthy resident in the village stated that the station had to be exactly one mile away from the centre of the village, which at the time was the mill, located (still today) on Mill Street. This was so that it could be easily reached as a route out with the goods produced.

Bus

The village is served by the 511 bus route, operated by Arriva Midlands North, which runs between

Shrewsbury Shrewsbury ( , ) is a market town and civil parish in Shropshire (district), Shropshire, England. It is sited on the River Severn, northwest of Wolverhampton, west of Telford, southeast of Wrexham and north of Hereford. At the 2021 United ...

and Whitchurch via

. Some services terminate in Wem and do not continue to Whitchurch. WhixallMarinaEvening

Canals

Prees was the intended destination of an arm of the

Ellesmere Canal The Ellesmere Canal was a waterway in England and Wales that was planned to carry boat traffic between the rivers Mersey and Severn. The proposal would create a link between the Port of Liverpool and the mineral industries in north east Wales an ...

. However, the arm was only completed as far as

Quina Brook Quina Brook is a hamlet in north Shropshire, near the border between England and Wales. Population details for the 2011 census are found under Wem Rural. Quina Brook was the final destination of an arm of the Ellesmere Canal. This arm was ori ...

. The arm is now known as the Prees Branch of the

Llangollen Canal The Llangollen Canal () is a navigable canals of the United Kingdom, canal crossing the border between England and Wales. The waterway links Llangollen in Denbighshire, north Wales, with Hurleston in south Cheshire, via the town of Ellesmere, S ...

, and is navigable for about a mile to Whixall

Marina A marina (from Spanish , Portuguese and Italian : "related to the sea") is a dock or basin with moorings and supplies for yachts and small boats. A marina differs from a port in that a marina does not handle large passenger ships or cargo ...

; the following 3/4 mile is still followable on the towpath as it passes through Prees Branch Canal Nature Reserve.

Notable people

* James Fleetwood (c.1603-1683) an English clergyman, vicar of Prees and later

Bishop of Worcester The Bishop of Worcester is the Ordinary (officer), head of the Church of England Anglican Diocese of Worcester, Diocese of Worcester in the Province of Canterbury, England. The title can be traced back to the foundation of the diocese in the ...

. * Thomas Gilbert (1613 in Prees – 1694) an English

ejected minister The Great Ejection followed the Act of Uniformity 1662 in England. Several thousand Puritan ministers were forced out of their positions in the Church of England following the Stuart Restoration, Restoration of Charles II of England, Charles II ...

of the seventeenth century. *

Philip Henry Philip Henry (24 August 1631 – 24 June 1696) was an English Nonconformist clergyman and diarist. His son Matthew Henry was a notable commentator on the Bible and also a Presbyterian minister. Early life Philip Henry was born at Whitehall, ...

(1631–1696) an English nonconformist clergyman and diarist, ordained in Prees in 1657. *

Rowland Hill, 1st Viscount Hill General Rowland Hill, 1st Viscount Hill, (11 August 1772 – 10 December 1842) was a British Army officer and politician who served in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Hill became Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in 1828. Well- ...

(1772 in Prees Hall – 1842) a British Army officer who served in the

Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

, ultimately Commander in Chief. His Doric

column A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member ...

stands in

. *

Robert Chambre Hill Sir Robert Chambre Hill, (25March 17785March 1860) was a British Army cavalry officer who fought in the Peninsular War and was wounded while in command of the Royal Horse Guards at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Background He was born on 25Mar ...

(1778 in

Hawkstone Hall Hawkstone Hall is a early 18th-century country mansion near Hodnet and Weston-under-Redcastle, Shropshire, England which was more recently occupied as the pastoral centre of a religious organisation for many years. It is a Grade I listed buildin ...

– 1860) a British Army cavalry officer, fought in the

Peninsular War The Peninsular War (1808–1814) was fought in the Iberian Peninsula by Kingdom of Portugal, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom against the invading and occupying forces of the First French ...

. * Clement Delves Hill (1781 in Hawkstone Hall – 1845) a British Army officer who fought in the

Battle of Waterloo The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo, Belgium, Waterloo (then in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium), marking the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The French Imperial Army (1804–1815), Frenc ...

. * Thomas Noel Hill (1784 in Hawkstone Hall - 1832) a British Army officer who fought in the Battle of Waterloo. * John Allen (1810-1886) a

clergyman,

Archdeacon of Salop The Archdeacon of Salop is a senior ecclesiastical officer in the Church of England Diocese of Lichfield. History Shropshire was historically split between the diocese of Hereford (under the Archdeacon of Shropshire) and the diocese of Coventry ...

1847-1886, was Vicar of Prees 1846-1883. *

Francis Sandford, 1st Baron Sandford Francis Richard John Sandford, 1st Baron Sandford, (14 May 1824 – 31 December 1893), known as Sir Francis Sandford between 1863 and 1891, was a British civil servant. He was Permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Committee of Council on E ...

KCB, PC (1824–1893) known as Sir Francis Sandford a British civil servant who implemented the

Elementary Education Act 1870 The Elementary Education Act 1870 ( 33 & 34 Vict. c. 75), commonly known as Forster's Education Act, set the framework for schooling of all children between the ages of 5 and 12 in England and Wales. It established local education authorities wit ...

( 33 & 34 Vict. c. 75), buried in Prees. * Henry Maddocks (1871 in Prees — 1931) an English lawyer and Conservative Party politician. * Thomas Oakley (1879 in Prees – 1936) a British electrician and politician, MP for

The Wrekin The Wrekin ( ) is a hill in east Shropshire, England. It is located some west of Telford, on the border between the unitary authorities of Shropshire Council, Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin. Rising above the Shropshire Plain to a height of ...

1924-1929 * William Hutchings (1879 – 1948 in Prees) soldier and English amateur cricketer, played in 24 first-class matches for

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

and

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Shropshire, Staffordshire, and the West Midlands (county), West ...

Governance

electoral ward A ward is a local authority area, typically used for electoral purposes. In some countries, wards are usually named after neighbourhoods, thoroughfares, parishes, landmarks, geographical features and in some cases historical figures connected t ...

in the same name exists. This ward stretches northeast to Adderley with a total ward population taken at the 2011 census of 4,281.

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Shropshire Civil parishes in Shropshire World War II prisoner-of-war camps in England