The Tern Valley Trail

Isombridge

The Domesday Manor

The-Road-to-Marsh-Green

Archaeological evidence north and south of the minor road to Walcot confirms agricultural activity may have gone on in the area since at least the Iron Age and, by the time of the Domesday Survey in 1086, Isombridge was important enough to have been considered a manor in its own right. At the time, it was held from the Norman overlord Roger de Montgomery by Ulf, presumably an Anglo-Saxon. The Manor, which contained a mill and land for four ploughs, was valued at 20 shillings and its recorded inhabitants included two ploughmen, four villagers, three smallholders and a man-at arms.

After Domesday, Isombridge seems to have declined in importance and the settlement was eventually incorporated into the manor of Great Bolas. Today, this remote part of the Tern Valley trail, with its dramatic backdrop of The Wrekin and south Shropshire hills, is an excellent spot for birdwatching. Close to the road, several old clay pits have been filled with water and form good habitat for a variety of wading birds and other avian visitors to the area.