Historic Soulton Hall, Shropshire
Unusually well documented
We are unusually lucky to have so much material avaible to understand Soulton's History: e.g. aside from our entry in the Domesday 1086 Book, the earlest document relating to Soulton Hall (The Soulton Rental, kept here until 1964, now in Shropshire County Archives with other1660s papers) dates from 1186. Guest here can still see copies. Sidney A. Ashton took extensive photographs of the house and farm in 1890, which you can see below, or, if any problems, here .
THE VICTORIAN FARM: SHORT SLIDESHOWSigns of settlement here go back to the Bronze Age (3,000-5,000 years ago). After the Victorian video below you can read about our earlier history.
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A BRIEF HISTORY OF SOULTON
Although a settlement is known to have existed at Soulton for some three thousand years (as the presence of Bronze Age ring ditches to the north of Soulton Hall and the possibility of Roman activity indicates), the first known inhabitant of Soulton is Britric the Saxon. He lived here in the years before the 1066 Norman Conquest.
The Doomsday Book of 1086 recalls that after the Conquest, and owing to Soulton's strategic importance, the Normans constructed a mote and bailey castle (the site of which is still visible to the north east of Soulton Hall). At this time the manor of Soulton belonged to King's Chapel at Shrewsbury Castle.
In the twelfth century there was a dispute about the ownership of the Manor Soulton, which reached the courts at Westminster. The lawyer for the plaintiff, later Yvo de Soulton, came to have the ownership of the manor. He went on to represent Shropshire at two parliaments, as a Knight of the Shire.
By the thirteenth century Robert Corbett and his family were living at Soulton, which was then probably a fortified manor house on the site of the Norman castle.
Some time around 1420, the manor house on the moated site was burnt down, perhaps by a Welsh raiding party. When the manor house came to be re-built, a dryer, more suitable site was chosen: that of the present Soulton Hall.
Originally, this rebuilding constituted a late Medieval/Tudor long house of timber framed construction, remnants of which can be seen in the present Hall. By the mid-1500s, Soulton was lived in by Edward Twyniho.
In 1556, Sir Roland Hill, who had been the first protestant Lord Mayor of London in 1549 and was a creditor to Henry VIII, acquired Soulton from Twyniho. He extended and re-modeled the Tudor long house into the impressive Elizabethan brick building which can be seen today.
In 1668, his descendant, Thomas Hill, High Sheriff of Shropshire and a friend of Samuel Pepys placed his marital coat of arms above the front door. The Keeper's Cottage was built at around this time; Ploughman's and Herdsman's Cottages were built in 1899.
In the years since Thomas Hill's death Soulton has cared for and enjoyed by descendants of the same family.
The Farm
We are still very much a working farm. Below is a map of the historic field names, on the estate and woodland page you can view a labeled map with the sitte of the mound and our other historic features.
View Soulton Hall Historic Field Names in a larger map
Short Note on Metal DetectingMetal detecting is strictly prohibited on all ground at Soulton. We feel strongly that it's important that only rigorously academic enquiries are made into the archaeology. We keep a keen eye on the ground here, and are -- we're afraid -- duty bound report any interference to English Heritage.
