Talk:Mucklestone

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The large medieval parish of Mucklestone is only occasionaly recorded in contemporary documents. At the time of Domesday in AD1086 it was made up by the manors of Woore, Gravenhunger, Dorrington and Bearstone in the county of Shropshire and Mucklstone, Oakley, Winnington and Knighton in Staffordshire. The parish was divided between Staffordshire and Shropshire, with the Shropshire manors on the north-west side of the river and the Staffordshire manors on the south-east. The exception to this rule was Knighton, a small rectangular manor jutting across the river into what we would expect to be Shropshire. However, the most interesting element of the Domesday situation is that while the Shropshire manors were held by Norman lords, indluding William Malbank who was the Baron of Nantwich, the Staffordshire manors were held by men with Saxon names. Another exception in this case is Oakley which was held by the King. Of these only Knighton was held before and after the Norman Conquest by the same lord, a man called Dunning.

A watermill was established at Bearstone by AD1086, and another between Dorrington and Gravenhunger ('Cudlesford' Mill) was set up in the early 13th century.

The parish was broken up in the early 19th century when a new parish was established in Woore (where a chapel-of-ease had been built by at least the 16th century).