Hodnet, Shropshire

Hodnet is a village and civil parish in Shropshire, England. To the northeast of the village is the town of Market Drayton.

History
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 the construction of the by-pass 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.

Governance
Hodnet was the meeting place of an Anglo-Saxon hundred which continued to function after the Norman Conquest. Hodnet is recorded in the Domesday Book as Odenet, and the village's 17th-century Hundred House was named for this reason. Its hundred court was merged and moved, during the reign of King Henry I (1100–1135), into the Hundred of North Bradford, which was active until the late 19th century.

Hodnet was the centre of a large ecclesiastical parish containing the hamlets of Little Bolas, Hawkstone, Hopton, Kenstone, Losford, Marchamley, Peplow, and Wollerton and the chapelries of Weston-under-Redcastle and Wixhill. Under the terms of the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, it was part of the Drayton Poor Law Union, electing two members to its Board of Guardians. Hodnet has had a parish council since 1895.

Shropshire Council, a Unitary authority is responsible for local government services in Hodnet. The village is in the North Shropshire parliamentary constituency.

Geography
Hodnet is on the A53 road from Shrewsbury to Newcastle-under-Lyme and the Staffordshire Potteries. The ancient parish covered 10,700 acres of fertile arable land. The underlying geology consists of red Bridgnorth Sandstone which is covered with glacial till forming a rolling landscape while the flood plain of the River Tern is flat. Marl deposited by retreating glaciers was dug for fertilizer and the resultant marl pits are now wildlife habitats.

Transport
The four-mile long Hodnet bypass, the A53 opened in 2003 at a cost £14 million taking heavy traffic from the old A53 and A442 roads away from the village's narrow streets. It was built by contractors Alfred McAlpine.

Hodnet Station was a stop on the Wellington and Market Drayton Railway, which opened in 1867 and was operated by the Great Western Railway. Lack of use forced the line to close to passenger traffic on 9 September 1963, and to freight four years later.

Landmarks
The motte and bailey castle is a scheduled monument in the grounds of Hodnet Old Hall surrounded by Hodnet Park which incorporates elements of a medieval deer park.

Hawkstone Hall in Hawkstone Park adjoining the village was the home of Rowland Hill, 1st Viscount Hill.

Religion
St Luke's Church has an early foundation and retains much of its Norman nave. It was extended in the 14th century and its octagonal tower dates from this time. The church was restored in 1846. The church has some notable stained glass windows including one by David Evans depicting the evangelists and is connected with the story of the Holy Grail of Arthurian legend.

Economy
The village also has two shops and the Bear at Hodnet public house. There is a florist and a crockery shop.

Education
Hodnet Primary School has 162 pupils, and is maintained by Shropshire County Council. There is no provision of secondary education in the village.

Notable people
Reginald Heber, hymn writer and Bishop of Calcutta was the rector from 1807 to 1823. Reginald Heber Macaulay, a footballer with Old Etonians who played in three FA Cup Finals, was born there in 1858, as was his brother, the Classical scholar George Campbell Macaulay, both were sons of the village rector. Novelist Mary Cholmondeley was the daughter of another rector and lived in Hodnet until about 1896.

Sport
Hodnet has a cricket club, Hodnet and Peplow CC. Its first eleven play in the Rollinson Smith Shropshire Cricket League Division 3.

F.C. Hodnet, a football club formed for the 2007-08 season, play at the Hodnet Social Club. The club won the Shropshire Alliance football league on 10 May 2008 and since the 2008-09 season competes in the Shropshire County Premier Football League, which became the Mercian Regional Football League in 2012. Starting in Division One, after two seasons the team was promoted to the Premier Division in 2010. In 2011, FC Hodnet won the Premier Division Cup, beating Haughmond in the final.

Hodnet Social Football Club, originating in the late 1990s, competes in the Telford Sunday Leagues.