Along the Moors - Crudgington Green

Leveson's Revolution

Wrockwardine Moor - The Manor Once Enjoyed Free Rein Across the moorland

In 1579, William Sheldon married Elizabeth Leveson, whose family had become significant local landowners when they acquired the former estates of Lilleshall Priory in the wake of its dissolution. Following his marriage, Sheldon transferred his ownership of the manors of Crudgington, Sleap, Kynnersley and Cherrington to Walter Leveson, his brother-in-law. Leveson had already affected a series of agricultural improvements on the southern fringe of the moors around Lilleshall, creating a number of smallholdings and imposing rigorous conditions on his tenants, involving the strict maintenance of watercourses and clearing of scrub.

Leveson was eager to extend the scope of his brave new world and entered into a series of pacts with other local landowners to establish exclusive rights to large areas of moorland. This culminated in 1582 with an agreement purchased from the 6th Earl of Shrewsbury who, as Lord of Wrockwardine, had previously enjoyed the right to graze cattle across all of the moorlands from Sleapford to Newport. In exchange for an annual rent charge of £40, the Earl agreed to extinguish his claims to the moors and allowed Leveson to set in motion a programme the like of which had not been seen before.