Website Designed By
Along the Moors - Lilleshall
The Obelisk
The obelisk on Lilleshall Hill was erected during 1833 in commemoration of the second Marquis of Stafford and first Duke of Sutherland George Granville Leveson-Gower (pronounced Loosen-Gore) by the tenants of his Lilleshall estate which, by that time, included most of the Weald Moors. From the mid-18th Century, the moorlands entered into a period of long-term decline and it was Lord Stafford’s interest in farm and estate management that revived the agricultural fortunes of the area, providing the impetus for the most radical programme of change ever seen on the Weald Moors.
When Lord Stafford inherited the estate from the second Earl Gower, many of the drainage improvements to the moorlands that had been made in the course of preceding centuries had reverted to nature. While some of these problems appear to have been due to poor quality workmanship by previous landowners (who had dug ditches simply to claim ownership of the commons around their manors as a prelude to the profitable act of enclosing them) the underlying cause of stagnation was attributed to the actions of the Earl himself who, after inheriting Lilleshall in 1755, re-leased the entire estate in order to fund his political ambitions. This seems to have precipitated a collapse in the rigorous programme of maintenance needed to preserve the artificial drainage channels and streams around the moorlands, with surface water inundating large swathes of pasture whenever heavy rain occurred.