FAQs

You can find out about how the Project started on our About page

Find out about Geoff Butter here

You can search the Collection  here

You can make an appointment at Shropshire Archive to view the original documents.

There are lots of exciting opportunities to help with the Project and find out more about the community and history of Adderley.  Contact us here.

The whole trail is approximately 5 kilometres long so should take approximately 1.5- 2 hours.

Dogs should be on a lead at all times. Please observe the rules about dog poop. There are special bins at different locations around the trail. Exercise caution when entering fields with young cows.

There are no stiles on the Trail but there are some five bar gates.  Please respect the Country Code and close these behind you.  There are no steep inclines on the Trail but the ground is uneven in some areas.  The complete Trail is not suitable for wheelchair users but can be accessed in parts

There is a unisex/disabled toilet at the rear of the Village Hall behind the playground

At the Village Hall car park.  Please do not park at any other point along the trail.

Adderley before the French Norman conquest of 1066 was Anglo-Saxon. Adderley was held and owned by Edric the wild.

Adderley was then known as Eldredelei, which means a forest or wood clearing.

Adderley is a civil parish in Shropshire, England. It contains 26 listed buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England.  Of these, one is listed at Grade I, (St. Peter’s Church) and the others are at Grade II.

Adderley rivalled Market Drayton in size as Adderley lay on the salt route from Nantwich (a major salt producing town ) to the Midlands.  There was a steady stream of pack animals through Adderley and it soon rivelled Drayton in importance and size.  The Market Cross was situated at the corner of Rectory Lane and now stands outside the Church gates.

In the Doomsday Book there were 4 tenants t had a recorded population of 6 households in 1086, putting it in the smallest 40% of settlements recorded in the Domesday Book.

In 2021 there was a population of 450

The monument includes the earthwork and buried remains of a motte castle and an 18th century icehouse, situated to the north west of Pool, House.

The castle is believed to have been the principal holding of the Norman lord in the manor of Eldredelei (Alderley) and in the early 12th century was held by the Dunstanville family.  A roughly circular steep-sided glacial mound about 7m high has been adapted and used to form the motte. It is surrounded by undulating land and is approximately 65m in diameter at its base and 35m across the top. The summit of the motte is flat, but rises gradually from the north west to the south east. Quarrying for sand in modern times has modified the eastern and western parts of the motte, which in the early 20th century resulted in the discovery of sherds of 13th century pottery and part of a rim of a bronze cauldron. They appear to have been associated with a charcoal rich deposit and burnt soil, suggesting that the structures on top of the motte were burnt down.

In the 18th century a brick-built icehouse was inserted into the south eastern side of the mound. A barrel-vaulted entrance passage, 5.5m long, leads to a domed ice-chamber, approximately 3m in diameter, reported to have a depth of 20m. This type of icehouse is known as a cup and dome ice well. The icehouse probably served as the ice store for Pool House, a farmhouse of 16th or 17th century date, extensively altered and extended in the 19th century. The icehouse is a Listed Building Grade II. Ice was probably obtained from the pond to the south of the Pool House.

The Motte and Bailey are situated on private land but the Castle Hill can be see from the canal

The Corbet and the Needham family, Earls of Kilmorey. 

In the Sixteenth Century Adderley belonged to Sir Rowland Hill who was Lord Mayor of London. Eventually through his family, Adderley passed down to the Corbeau family.

The Corbets arrive from France during the rule of William the Conqueror.   The Corbet  surname is derived from the Anglo-Norman French, Corbet, which is a form of corb, meaning “raven”.  The symbol on the Corbet family crest is a black raven.  They trace their ancestry to two barons found in the 1086 Domesday Book and probably derive from the Brioton and Essay region near Sées in Normandy.  

The Corbet family became one of the most powerful and richest of the landed gentry in Shropshire.

The Needham family of Shavington in Shropshire acquired the Cheshire properties of the Dutton family of Dutton when Eleanor married Sir Robert Needham, president of the Council in the Marches of Wales, after the death of her first husband in 1622.   He was created the first Viscount Kilmorey in 1625, and the 12th Viscount, Francis, was created Viscount Newry and Morne, 1st Earl of Kilmorey in 1822. The family is based at Newry, Co. Down, N. Ireland.

On an elevated position to the northwest between the Barns and the school. 

The first house was burned down and a new Victorian house was built and completed in 1879. It was demolished in 1955.

The building was made from red bricks – mostly made locally at works “in the hole between the pool and the Church”  laid on the 29th of August of 1877. Some sources indicate that rotten flooring led to the demise of the property, leading to its demolition some 60 years later – it could be assumed that using the wooden partition to hold up the weight of the grand tiled roof may have led to structural issues if rot was indeed a factor in the decision to demolish in 1955.

The site cannot be accessed from the public highway and the transfer of the land from the Corbet family was in 1958.

North and South Lodge which remain the only tangible links with the demolished house today.

Both the Barns and the road leading up to the Barns is private.

The farmhouse dating back to the late C18 or early C19 was the former stable block to Adderley Hall Farm c. 1787, 1788.  It is a  Grade II Listed building,  in red brick with dressings in grey sandstone with a hipped slate roof.

Adderley Hall was made from red bricks – mostly made locally at works “in the hole” between the pool behind Adderley Hall Farm and St Peter’s Church. 

The font dates back to the 12^th C.  There is a brass in the church dating from 1556 on the tomb of Sir Robert Needham his wife Agnes and their 9 children.

The oldest existing part of the present church is the north transept, which was built in 1635 – 1636 as a burial chapel for the Needham family, the Viscounts Kilmorey of Shavington.

The other remaining part of the older church is the tower, built in 1712. The rest of the church was built in 1801 by Richard Baker; it is the only known work by this architect.

The chancel was restored in 1822. The interior of the church was divided in about 1970 (the church’s own records show this taking place in 1956) for the nave to continue to be used as a parish church, and the rest of the church to be preserved by the Churches Conservation Trust. 

The mounting block outside the church dates from 1774.  Grade II  Listed Building

The Sundial 18^th C is 40 metres north of the nave of the church Grade II  Listed Building

In 1789 Squire Sir Corbet Corbet agreed with Reverend Robert Clive, Rector of Adderley Church to replace the Parsonage (Rectory) located near to the earlier Adderley Hall, with a new Rectory and barn in the village, now known as The Old Rectory and The Village Hall.

Cobscot Hey was built in 1866 for the Corbet Family of Adderley Hall.   It was the rectory to St. Peter’s Church and the home of Athelstone Corbet, son of Reginald. It passed out of Church hands in 1954 and has been a private residence since.

Church Farmhouse c. 1790 Grade II Listed

Raven House was built in1824. Originally it was three houses. Behind the house is a courtyard, a barn and three farm labourers’ cottages.   In the late 1880s it was a public house, probably called The Raven Arms or The Raven Inn.   By the end of the century it was closed down.  Owned privately by the Corbet Estate,  Mrs Katherine Corbet lent Raven House to The Red Cross for use as a military hospital (Raven House Auxiliary Hospital ) for convalescing soldiers from The First Word War in July 1915.   Approximately 150 soldiers passed through Raven House.   It was closed in September 1917 as it was too small for further army use.  In November 1917  Raven House, lent by Mrs K Corbet,  became an Edith Cavell Home of Rest for Nurses.   About 600 nurses stayed there in its 10 years of service. The Home closed in October 1927. 

The Shropshire Union Canal (locally known as the “Shroppie”) started life in 1797.

It is over 66 miles long and passes through the counties of Cheshire, Shropshire and Staffordshire linking to the West Midlands conurbation and the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal at Autherley Junction in Wolverhampton.

The Adderley stretch of the canal was built as part of the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal (act passed 1826, opened 1835). It was then absorbed by the Ellesmere and Chester Canal in 1845. It eventually became part of the Shropshire Union Canal in 1846. 

The bridges is on what is now the Shropshire Union Canal were built in c1830 by the engineers Thomas Telford and Alexander Easton. 

Mr Frank Butter, of Green Bank ,Adderley,  was the lock-keeper since November, 1978 on the Shropshire Union Canal.  A former farmworker, Mr Butter transformed the areas round the locks and bridges into lawns and garden beds and has spelled out the name Adderley in red, white and blue flowers on an embankment.   He won the British Waterways national competition and the Northwich divisional competition for the best maintained locks.

Most of the Shropshire Union system was closed by an Act of Abandonment in 1944.

The Canal Trust was launched in 2012, taking over the guardianship of British Waterways, canals, rivers, reservoirs and docks in England and Wales. The British Waterways Board was set up in 1963, but it was not until Barbara Castle’s Transport Act of 1968 that the leisure value of canals was officially recognised and the waterways were given public money to support their use for recreation. Successful canal restorations carried out by enthusiasts in the 1960s and ’70s.

The station was built by the Nantwich and Market Drayton Railway (N&MDR) and opened on 20 October 1863 and operated by the Great Western Railway.   

The Nantwich and Market Drayton Railway was eventually amalgamated into the Great Western Railway in 1897.  The line passed on to the Western Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948, and was then closed to passengers by the British Railways Board on 9 September 1963.

Yes

Closed to passengers by the British Railways Board on 9 September 1963.

Adderley Church of England is Primary School Victorian building dates back to 1858

There was a weekly bus – Nantwich – Audlem – Adderley

Stopped and restarted finally stopped in 2013

Yes – Market Drayton to Nantwich

The Old Smithy Bungalow was the blacksmith’s.  

Old Smithy Cottage became a grocery which later sold antiques/bric a brac; it is now a private dwelling.

There was a timber yard between the blacksmiths and Church Farmhouse.

The large house opposite the Church – Church Farmhouse c. 1790 Grade II Listed

The Old Post Office was a stage coach post house with the changing of horses on the Shrewsbury to Nantwich route.  It closed and fell into disrepair and was sold as a private dwelling in the 1960’s. 

The post office then moved to no 9 Adderley and became the General Stores run by Tom & Betty Butter around late 1960’s.  The general stores closed in 2010 and is now a private dwelling known as Post Box Cottage, 9 Adderley. 

Adderley Village Hall was donated to the village by Sir John Corbet.   The hall replaced a club room in 1968 which had become inadequate for the needs of the village.