Church Stretton

Church Stretton
Church Stretton shown within the United Kingdom
Population	4,186
OS grid reference	SO453937
District	South Shropshire
Shire county	Shropshire
Region	West Midlands
Constituent country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	CHURCH STRETTON
Postcode district	SY6
Dialling code	01694
Police	West Mercia
Fire	Shropshire
Ambulance	West Midlands
UK Parliament	Ludlow
European Parliament	West Midlands
List of places: UK • England • Shropshire

Coordinates: 52°′″N 2°′″W / 52.5385, -2.8058

Church Stretton (or "Stretton", as it is known by locals) is a small town in Shropshire, England, famous for its spring water and stunning views over the Shropshire Hills AONB. It is the only town, other than the district capital Ludlow, with a population over 3000 in the South Shropshire district. The town has a station[1] on the Heart of Wales Line, which runs through the valley north-south. Trains can be caught to, inter alia, Shrewsbury, Hereford, Manchester and Cardiff

History

People have lived in the Stretton gap for thousands of years; an Iron Age hillfort on Caer Caradoc[2] still overlooks the town. The name "Stretton" is derived from the Old English words stræt meaning "Roman Road" and tun meaning "settlement"; a Roman Road, Watling Street(now the A49)runs through it
The town was granted a market charter by King John in 1214 which is still held every Thursday. Much of the town centre was destroyed by fire in 1593 and many of the present half timbered buildings in the town centre date from the time of the rebuilding[3].
Historically, the town was noted for its textiles, but the carding mill closed at the beginning of the 20th century, leaving only the name of the valley that the mill was in (Carding Mill Valley, now the town's popular tourist area).
Church Stretton was nicknamed Little Switzerland during its growth in the Victorian and Edwardian periods, both because of its mountainous terrain, and because the town is run like clockwork.

• Extract from A History of the County of Shropshire: Volume 10 (1998)

Geology

The local geology is complex; the area lies astride the Church Stretton Fault and atop some of the oldest rocks in the British Isles - over 560 million mya. In 1990 another nearby fault - the Pontesford-Linley Fault - registered an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.2 on the Richter scale[4].
The area also plays a part in the history of geology: the three major subdivsions of the Lower Paleozoic are named for local celtic tribes - Cambrian, Ordovician & Silurian. Also, Comley quarry is about 4km from the town and the first site in the British Isles where trilobites were recorded.
The town is dominated by the huge Long Mynd massif, which provides the town with both its views, and the water that the town's economy is based around. The water comes from an underground glacial lake, and is extracted from boreholes at various places on the Long Mynd.

Miscellaneous

Church Stretton parish church

• A notable feature of the town, is the large number of different churches:Methodist Church; sheela na gig in St Lawrence Church
• Church Stretton also has two schools a secondary school with 750 pupils[5] and a primary school with 250 pupils. OFSTED Report
• Church Stretton is a major centre for the sport of archery[6].
• The water bottling plant is the town's biggest employer[7].
• Other employers include Polymer Laboratories on the east side of the town[8], and tourism which is a growth industry in the area.

Nearby towns and villages

• Little Stretton - to the south
• All Stretton - to the north
• Craven Arms - town to the south
• Wall under Heywood
• Rushbury
• Longville in the Dale
• Ticklerton
• Ratlinghope

Famous and former residents

• The actor Pete Postlethwaite lives near Little Stretton
• The 'White House' nursing home on Sandford Avenue was destroyed in 2006 to make way for a housing development. It was previously the family home of Silvester Horne a congregationalist minister, Liberal MP for Ipswich, and father of the BBC broadcaster Kenneth Horne.
• The novelist Henry Kingsley (1830-1876) wrote Stretton based around this area.
• E. M. Almedingen (1898-1971), the biographer and children's writer, lived here in the 1930s[9].
• The writer Kenneth Bird (1916-1993) moved to Church Stretton upon retirement.
• Oliver Sandys (1892-1964) lived nearby in Little Stretton and set her novel Quaint Place (1952) in Church Stretton[10].
• Hesba Stretton (1832-1911) came here often before moving away from Shropshire when she became an established author. There is a plaque to her memory in St. Lawrence's Church together with a window depicting the figure of Jessica from her immensely popular story Jessica's First Prayer (1866)[11].
• Mary Webb (1881-1927) called the town Shepwardine in her novels, particularly in The Golden Arrow (1916).
• Olympic bronze-medal archer, Alison Williamson (1971 - )[12] lives in All Stretton.

External links

• Church Stretton - Official Town Council website
• Church Stretton - links by
• Church Stretton Photos
• Photographs of Church Stretton on Shropshire Gallery
• Annual Arts Festival
• Tourism website for Shropshire
• Annual Food Fair

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