Maesbury Contours

F. A. Mason's description of the area*:

Marshland of Maesbury Marsh. Studying the layout of the area one notes that from Oswestry to the higher ground at Woolston is a gentle downward slope (note the flow of the Morda Brook). To the east is Queen's Head and Aston Locks, a drop in the canal showing that this area is higher than Maesbury Marsh. Again to the west are the Pant and Llanymynech Hills, so in the early days before any drainage system was devised the whole area would have been one vast bog marshland providing homes for all sorts of wildlife, water based birds and mammals. As better methods of land cultivation were devised so the land was reclaimed leaving a rich compost soil as it is today. There are still traces of black peaty soil in some areas.

We have stories that the area was drained by French prisoners of war, from the Napoleonic wars, in the early years of the 19th century, but no specific confirmation of this at present. All the streams in the area of Maesbury have been cut into artificially deep channels.

*A Little Bit of Shropshire: The Village of Maesbury, 1800-1930 by F. A. Mason, published by Gee & Son, Denbigh, November 2000, ISBN 07074 0350 2.