Cressage, Shropshire

Description
Cressage, a village, a township, and an ecclesiastical parish in Cound parish, Salop, on the river Severn, 4 miles NW by N of Much-Wenlock, and 8 SE of Shrewsbury. There is a station on the Severn Valley section of the G.W.R., and a post, money order, and telegraph office under Shrewsbury. The township includes Belswardyne, which is in Leighton parish for ecclesiastical purposes. Acreage, 2315; population, 281; population of the ecclesiastical parish, 247. The village is said to derive its name (Christ's Oak) from an oak under which missionaries preached to the pagan inhabitants. This oak has long since disappeared, but there still remains a very large oak tree called the Lady Oak. The Severn is crossed here by a timber bridge. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Lichfield; value, £205. The church is modern.