Heritage

1. Tasley has an interesting history with records dating from medieval times (AD 1066 to AD 1539).  Detailed information about the heritage of the area can be found at Shropshire’s Historic Environment Record (HER) – see  https://www.shropshire.gov.uk/environment/historic-environment/historic-environment-record/  .  This is the primary source of trusted information about the historic environment of the county – archaeological sites, finds and features, historic buildings, structures and landscapes. The TNP Steering Group undertook research as part of the preparation of TNP and relevant historical information is provided on the website.

2. The community survey in 2024 asked residents and non-residents about heritage assets – whether they were aware of them and if they wanted to celebrate them.  The responses showed that a majority of respondents were aware of the Racecourse, Brick Kiln Plantation and Tasley Church & Church Yard and wanted to celebrate them (see Sections 3.7 – 3.8 of the Survey Results Report).  In addition, there were suggestions for other local heritage assets including Footbridge Farm, Hundred House Farm,  Roundthorn Farm, the Water Tower and The Nock Deighton Smithfield.  Nock Deighton Agricultural was established in 1831 as a dedicated auctioneering firm and their Livestock & Auction Centre is located in Tasley where they hold  regular prime stock sales, store sales and machinery sales.  The cattle market was relocated from the centre of Bridgnorth to Tasley in the 1980s.

3. The Parish of Tasley (formerly called Teazlea or Tassele) was within the Hundred of Stottesden, and following the Norman Conquest of 1066 Tasley was held by Roger Corbet under John Fitzalan.  The Domesday Book of 1086 records Tasley as being part of Morville Manor. 

4. The Manor passed through the ownership of a number of families and by the late 15th Century was owned by the Earls of Shrewsbury.  The first reference associating the Acton family with the Parish appears to be in 1677 when Thomas Acton, Esq, is described as ‘of Tasley’. The Actons were and remain well-known Shropshire landowners and the Manor was inherited by the successors of Thomas Acton as part of the Gatacre Estate, several of whom were buried at Tasley. 

5. There are three Listed Buildings in Tasley, all Grade II: the Church of St Peter and St Paul, The Leasowes, and the Former Farmhouse at the Leasowes.  Details can be found on the Historic England website https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/.

6. The Church of St Peter and St Paul replaced a former church which was demolished in 1840.  The current building opened in 1884 and was designed by Josiah Griffith with some of the treasures of the former church preserved in the new building. In the south wall of the chancel is a piscina used for cleaning sacred vessels and this is probably at least 800 years old. The octagonal font dates from the 14th Century. The original chancel screen was preserved and dates from the late 15th or early 16th Century. The pulpit and reading desk are Jacobean and seem to be made up from carved panels from the demolished church. A brass was erected in 1619 in memory of George Bott, a former Rector and has been preserved. The foundation stone of the existing church was laid in July 1840 by a young boy who went on to become Capt. Acton and patron of the living.

7. The church is built in yellow brick with a slate roof and is in Gothic style. It consists of a four-bay nave, and a single-bay chancel. At the west end is a gabled bellcote with two bells and a pierced roundel. The doorway is at the west end and has a pointed arch, and the windows are lancets. Inside are some fittings from an earlier church on the site.

8. The Leasowes (HER 12084) is an early 19th Century building set within its own landscaped gardens, which were designed to ‘borrow’ views of the surrounding countryside. It is a brick house with a hipped slate roof, two storeys, and three bays. The porch has Tuscan pillars, a stuccoed cornice, and elaborate voluted parapets. The windows are sashes with moulded lintels.  Historically, the Leasowes was owned and occupied by members of the Acton family and had strong links with Aldenham Park in Morville which was originally the seat of the Acton family. 

9. The former farmhouse at the Leasowes is  probably 17th Century. The farmhouse, later divided into two cottages, is timber framed with a tile roof. There are two storeys and an attic, three bays, and an added bay to the right with applied timber framing. The windows are casements. 

10. Listed Buildings are protected as designated heritage assets in national and Shropshire level planning policies and there is little that TNP can do to add to these higher-level policies. However, TNP can identify candidate non-designated heritage assets (NdHAs) which are buildings and structures of local heritage interest in the Parish.  The following assets are of local heritage interest and a complete list of candidate NdHAs from Shropshire HER is published on the TNP website (see Technical Evidence folder).

11. Site of Bridgnorth Racecourse - Earliest meeting: August 1690, Final meeting: Saturday 20th May 1939. Early records show that racing was taking place in the Shropshire town of Bridgnorth by 1690 with the support of the Corporation. The course was situated near to Stourbridge Road and Green Lane on Morfe Common.  Cheny’s Horse-matches Calendar reported on the meeting held in August 1728 and Baily’s Racing Register first provided detailed results from races held at Bridgnorth in June 1732, when the racing fanatic, Mr Williams Wynne who lived in Shropshire, won the Selling Purse with Spot. In 1812 Morfe Common was enclosed and after the 1811 meeting the races moved from Morfe Common to Innage (Racecourse Farm, Tasley), where they remained until 1830. From Innage the races transferred to a new course at Tasley where they remained, but for a brief lapse, until the final flat meeting on the old course took place on 15th October 1873. An early steeplechase meeting was held at Tasley in 1866 and continued under various guises until the middle of the 20th Century. In the early 1900s meetings were billed as Bridgnorth and Wheatland Hunt but changed back to Bridgnorth in 1904. The Bridgnorth meeting continued until the final meeting on Saturday 20th May 1939.

12. Livestock Market - Nock Deighton Agricultural LLP, established in 1831, is one of the Midlands’ most well-established and respected firms of property specialists and livestock auctioneers.  Founded over 180 years ago as a dedicated auctioneering firm, the company has developed from strength to strength and plan on continuing to do so.  Nock Deighton Agricultural LLP,  based at the Livestock Market and Auction Centre in Tasley, near Bridgnorth, provides specialist advice for the rural community on a wide range of topics across Shropshire, the West Midlands and Wales.

13. Water Tower - This local landmark is a free-standing octagonal water tower presently in need of maintenance and increasingly being screened off from view by tree growth. The elevated tank is supported on eight legs with a steel ladder running up one side to the dome of the tower where there is a railed perimeter. The Water Tower which is visible over long distances from many directions 'proclaiming'  Tasley to all who approach is in an elevated position and is surrounded by a secure fence and includes a service structure.

14. Brick Kiln Plantation - The site name derives from the previous site use of brick making and the remains of an old brick kiln can be found within the woods.  

https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/woods/brick-kiln-plantation/ .

15. Ye Olde Punchbowl Inn and associated Hundred House opposite - Historic mapping of 1883 (1st edition OS) shows the building as the ‘Hundred House’, with a plan form reflecting the main building (including two extensions to the rear) and the two wings to the south elevation. To the east was a separate linear building. By 1902 (OS) the eastern building included a piggery at its western end. There had been no changes by 1926.

16. By 1963 (OS) the outbuilding had been connected to the main pub by a linking extension and the main building had been extended to the rear. By this point, the pub was renamed Ye Olde Punchbowl Inn probably because of its association with the Whig party who were traditionally Sherry and Punch drinkers. During the siege of Bridgnorth during the civil war in 1646 many of Oliver Cromwell’s troops billeted at the Punchbowl, one of the few buildings that survived when the Royal troops, also known as the ‘roundheads’, set fire to all the buildings in high town. St Leonard’s church was also destroyed then rebuilt after the fire. Beer pumps were only installed into the pub in the 1960s, before this the cellar for the pub was directly opposite the pub below the hundred house, and the beer was transported in porcelain jugs from the barrel to the bar for punters to drink ale. 

17. Modern mapping shows that the pub has subsequently been extended significantly to the rear and west.  Consequently, the building comprises a range of buildings of different styles and dates. However, it still retains much of its original characteristics despite major structural modifications.

18. To offer further insight, the central section, which is on an east-west alignment, appears to be the earliest phase and is a low, one and a half storey building of random coursed stone. It has a large brick chimney stack to the north elevation and a gabled roof dormer to the south, with leaded lights above a gabled entrance. It has a slightly later projecting random stone wing onto the road (south) which is of one and half storeys with a clay tiled, catslide roof to its western elevation and a tall, slender brick chimney stack. To its south gable, which faces onto the road, there is a upvc window with a painted brick sill, brick segmental arch and brick surround to the ground floor: potentially an inserted opening. The apex of the gable has been rebuilt in brick and there is a timber panelled hatch door into a low single storey outshut. Its eastern elevation has a gabled dormer window to the roof with a metal casement window of leaded lights. To the east of the central building is a heated two storey wing of painted brick and render. This fronts onto the Ludlow Road and has a tile roof with a coped gable parapet and upvc windows to the ground and first floor. A low single storey brick and tile building, which is of mid-20th Century date, attaches this to a further one and half storey stone building. This has two modern upvc windows to the ground floor beneath painted stone arched lintels with keystones. These flank a timber panelled door which have a similar lintel. To the roof is a small gabled dormer with a modern upvc window. Adjoining the building to the west, is a large modern single storey extension which wraps around the pub to the rear, and almost doubles the footprint of the original building.

19. NPPF para 216 sets out that 

‘the effect of an application on the significance of a non-designated heritage asset should be taken into account in determining the application. In weighing applications that directly or indirectly affect non-designated heritage assets, a balanced judgement will be required having regard to the scale of any harm or loss and the significance of the heritage asset.’

20. SLP Policy DP23. Conserving and Enhancing the Historic Environment sets out how Shropshire’s heritage assets will be protected, conserved, sympathetically enhanced and restored.  This includes part 

‘4. Ensuring that proposals which are likely to result in loss of, or harm to, the significance of a non-designated heritage asset and/or its setting, either directly or indirectly, will only be permitted if it can be clearly demonstrated that on balance, the benefits of the proposal outweigh that loss or harm. In making this assessment the following will be taken into account:

a. The degree of harm or loss of significance to the asset and/or its setting; and

b. The importance of the asset; and c. Any potential beneficial use.’

21. Para 4.203. explains that 

‘Non-designated heritage assets include structures, features or deposits with archaeological interest, historic buildings (including those associated with our industrial past such as canals, warehouses and other similar structures) historic farmsteads, the historic character of the landscape as expressed in the patterns of fields and woods and includes locally derived building materials and the distinctive forms, details and design of buildings. The Shropshire Historic Environment Record sets out Shropshire’s non-designated heritage assets.’