Hodnet | |
---|---|
Drayton Road, Hodnet |
|
Hodnet shown within Shropshire | |
Population | 1,534 (2011) |
OS grid reference | SJ613286 |
Civil parish |
|
Shire county | |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | Market Drayton |
Postcode district | TF9 |
Dialling code | 01630 |
Police | West Mercia |
Fire | Shropshire |
Ambulance | West Midlands |
EU Parliament | West Midlands |
UK Parliament | |
Hodnet is a village and civil parish in Shropshire, England. The town of Market Drayton lies 5.7 miles (9.2 km) north-east of the village.
Hodnet's name has Celtic origins derived from the Welsh hawdd meaning pleasant or peaceful and nant, a glen or valley in Old Welsh. Hodnet was recorded in the Domesday Book as Odenett.
Evidence of a Bronze Age burial site was discovered during construction of the bypass in 2002.
The Anglo-Saxon settlement, which had a chapel, was the centre of Odenet, a royal manor belonging to Edward the Confessor and held by Roger de Montgomery who supported William the Conqueror after 1066. Baldwin de Hodenet built the motte and bailey castle in around 1082 possibly on a moated mound from earlier times. The timber castle was rebuilt in sandstone around 1196 and burned down in 1264. Hodnet Castle was mentioned in a document of 1223. Odo de Hodnet was granted the right to hold a weekly fair and an annual market by Henry III in the mid-13th century and the village grew to the north and east of the castle by the 12th-century church.
In 1752 the estate passed from the Vernons, who had lived there for 250 years to the Hebers whose descendants still own the property.Hodnet Old Hall was a timber-framed manor house surrounded by the park which was recorded on Christopher Saxton's Map of Shropshire in the late 16th century. The old hall was demolished in 1870 when a new hall in the neo-Elizabethan style was built. The gardens were developed in the 1920s. In the 20th century the hall was used as a convalescent hospital during the world wars and in World War II there was an airfield in the grounds for the storage and dispersal of aircraft from Ternhill and RAF Shawbury.