Bromfield, Shropshire

Description
Bromfield, a village, a township, and a parish in Salop. The village stands near the confluence of the Onny and the Teme, 2 1/2 miles NW by N of Ludlow, and has a station on the Shrewsbury and Hereford Joint (G.W. and L. & N.W.) railway, and a post, money order, and telegraph office (R.S.O.) The township includes also the sub-townships of Lady Halton and Priors Halton, Cookeridge, High Walton, Whitbatch, and Burway. Acreage, 6722; population, 546. The parish formerly contained the chapelry of Halford. Oakly Park, contiguous to the village, is the seat of Lord Windsor. It is a fine mansion, situated in a finely wooded park, containing some very ancient oaks. A church and a religious house containing twelve secular canons stood here in the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042-66). It is also mentioned as the church of St Mary in the Domesday Book of William the Conqueror (1080). In 1135 the College of Secular Canons was transformed into a Priory of Regulars, who in 1155 affiliated themselves to the great Benedictine Abbey of St Peter at Gloucester. In common with all other religious houses it was dissolved in the reign of Henry VIII., when the property passed into the hands of Stephen Hadwall, and by him was subsequently sold to Charles Foxe, whose daughter married Matthew Herbert, from whom it descended to the present owners. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Hereford; net value, £200 with residence. The church adjoins some remains of the ancient priory; is an ancient structure of various dates, with a tower, and was repaired in 1850, and thoroughly restored in 1889-90.