Soulton Long Barrow

Soulton Hall is a Tudor country house near Wem, England. It was a 16th century architectural project of Sir Rowland Hill, publisher of the Geneva Bible. Hill was a statesman, polymath and philanthropist, later styled the "First Protestant Lord Mayor of London" because of his senior role in the Tudor statecraft that was needed to bring stability to England in the fall out of the Reformation. The building of the current Soulton Hall, undertaken during the tumult of the Reformation, is therefore associated with the political and social work required to incubate the subsequent English Renaissance.Soulton Hall is understood to be constructed in an elaborate set of humanist codes drawing together concepts from classical antiquity, geometry, philosophy and scripture. It is further understood that the building influenced the architecture of many later buildings of similar style.With a hidden chapel in its basement, a priesthole, and bookcases hidden within its thick walls to hide heretical documents, Soulton Hall is likely to have served as a base for the conspiracy which led to the publication of the Geneva Bible, which bears the name of Rowland Hill on its frontispiece as publisher.The grounds of the hall contain archaeology of a lost theatre. Emerging scholarship links the manor to Shakespeare, and in particular the play As You Like It which concerns the estate of a character called "Old Sir Rowland". Sir Rowland Hill was a cousin of Shakespeare's mother Mary Arden by reason of the marriage of his heiresses Elizabeth Corbett to Robert Arden in the 1580s.Mentioned in the Norman Domesday Book, Soulton has housed a manor since late Anglo Saxon times, and a "lost castle" rediscovered in 2021 undergoing a multi-season archaeological investigation by DigVentures. The modern manor incorporates a working farm pioneering various sustainable agriculture approaches, and also houses a series of contemporary monuments including standing stones and long barrow burial site.

Wem Rural is a large civil parish in Shropshire, England that encircles, but does not include, the market town of Wem (a separate parish formally known as "Wem Urban"). It includes the villages of Aston and Barkers Green (east of Wem), Coton, Edstaston, Quina Brook and Pepperstreet (north of Wem), Horton, Newtown, Wolverley and Northwood (northwest of Wem) and Tilley (south of Wem). Prees railway station is also in the parish. The population of the Civil Parish at the 2011 census was 1,659.The parish has three electoral wards - Edstaston ward to the north and north east of Wem, Newtown ward to the north and north west of Wem and the confusingly named Wem ward to the west, south and east of Wem. The parish was formed in 1900 from the outer part of the parish of Wem, the inner part of which became the parish of Wem Urban in the Wem urban district. Wem Rural was part of Wem Rural District until 1967, when the rural district was abolished and became part of North Shropshire Rural District. From 1974 to 2009 it was part of North Shropshire district.

Prees () is a village and civil parish in north Shropshire, near the border between England and Wales. Its name is Celtic and means "brushwood".

Prees railway station serves the village of Prees in Shropshire, England, although the station is a mile to the west of the village and in the parish of Wem Rural. The station is 18 miles 36 chains (29.7 km) from Crewe South Junction (approximately 14.0 mi (22.5 km) north of Shrewsbury) on the Welsh Marches Line. It was opened by the Crewe and Shrewsbury Railway in 1858. The station has two platforms and trains only stop here upon request. It is managed by Transport for Wales.

Aston is a small village in Wem Rural civil parish, Shropshire, England, near the River Roden. Aston contains a Grade II listed cottage.

Lee Brockhurst, sometimes known locally as just Brockhurst, is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Moreton Corbet and Lee Brockhurst, in the Shropshire district, in the ceremonial county of Shropshire, England. It is situated around 11 miles north-northeast of the county town of Shrewsbury. In 1961 the parish had a population of 120. On 1 April 1988 the parish was abolished to form "Moreton Corbet & Lee Brockhurst".The River Roden flows nearby to the hamlet.

Quina Brook is a hamlet in north Shropshire, near the border between England and Wales. Population details for the 2011 census are found under Wem Rural. Quina Brook was the final destination of an arm of the Ellesmere Canal. This arm was originally going to terminate at Prees. The arm is now known as the Press Branch of the Llangollen Canal, and is navigavable for about a mile to Whixall Marina, the following 3/4 mile is still followable on the towpath as it passes through Prees Branch Canal Nature Reserve.

Weston-under-Redcastle is an estate village of the Sir Rowland Hill legacy estates. It is a civil parish in Shropshire, England. It lies 10 km (6.2 miles) by road east of Wem. Historically, it has been part of the manor of Hawkstone. It is under the south west edge of the Hawkstone Ridge.

Barkers Green is a hamlet near Wem in Shropshire, England.

Hawkstone Park is a destination on the English Grand Tour and is a historic landscape park with pleasure grounds and gardens. It historically associated with Soulton Hall the Shropshire headquarters of Sir Rowland Hill ("Old Sir Rowland") publisher of the Geneva Bible, (d.1561) because these two estates were bought by him in 1556 from Sir Thomas Lodge(father of the writer Thomas Lodge, who penned the source book of Shakespeare's play As You Like It). For these reasons, the landscape is increasingly linked with the inspiration for that play. One of the reasons for the dominance of the landscape as an eighteenth century attraction is the Geneva Bible' enduring internal importance and is known in America as the Founders Bible, as well as being and the Bible of Shakespeare, Donne and Milton.In the later 1600s, Hawkstone Hall would be built as another headquarters of the legacy estates of "Old Sir Rowland". It is listed Grade I in Historic England's Register of Parks and Gardens.It is located north east of the small village of Weston-under-Redcastle, near to Wem, in Shropshire, England. It is known for its follies.

Coton is a village in Shropshire. It lies near the road from Whitchurch to Wem, about one mile southeast of Hollinwood. Coton Hall, once home to Viscount Hill, is an important English heritage site. In the early nineteenth century it belonged to Admiral George Bowen but it subsequently passed to the Honyman baronets after Admiral Bowen's youngest daughter, Elizabeth Essex Bowen, married the Scottish baronet Sir Ord John Honyman. Their sons, Sir George Honyman, 4th Baronet (1819–75) and the Rev. Sir William Macdonald Honyman (d. 1911) lived there in succession but they both died without issue and from the Rev. Sir William the estate passed to his niece, Elizabeth Hester Georgina Marie Ord Bearcroft, daughter of the Rev. Thomas Bearcroft (born Thomas Longcroft) of Fitz and his wife, Mary Hester Lilly Rosalie Honyman, sister of Sir George and the Rev. Sir William. As a desirable young heiress, Elizabeth Bearcroft married Captain Robert Charles Dighton Wilson in 1891 and they adopted the additional surname of MacQueen in 1912 when Elizabeth inherited entailed estates in Scotland. The Wilson-MacQueens sold Coton Hall to the wealthy match manufacturer Sir Alexander Maguire, who was living there by 1920 but sold the estate to Viscount Hill in 1924. The house has since been sold out of the Hill family.The village has a Methodist Chapel, which contained in 2013 a war memorial marble plaque to congregation members who died serving in the First World War. Since then the chapel has closed and in 2022 the managing trustees announced they would put the chapel for sale, its graveyard being closed to new unplanned burials but stipulating the graves and gravestones would not be removed.

St Mary's Church is in the village of Edstaston, in the civil parish of Wem Rural, Shropshire, England. It is an active Anglican parish church in the deanery of Wem and Whitchurch, the archdeaconry of Salop, and the diocese of Lichfield. Its benefice is united with those of St Chad, Prees, Holy Emmanuel, Fauls, Christ Church, Tilstock, and St Mary, Whixall. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building. It is described as "one of the most complete Romanesque buildings in Shropshire".