258 A TOPOGRAPHICAL 



was related by the late Sir Edward Littleton, that in one of his 

 visits to the Bishop at Hartlebury, as he was coming away his 

 Lordship called out, " Is the old house at Congreve, where I was 

 born, yet standing !" This village has also produced a still more 

 modern writer, Miss Barker, authoress of an amusing novel, en- 

 titled " A Welch Story," in which she has introduced the character 

 of Sir Edward Littleton, her patron, under the name of Sir Edwin. 

 Mr. Barker, her father, was many years a respectable iron-master 

 at Congreve, where he had one forge worked by the waters of the 

 Penk, and another higher up on the stream at Coven. 



Winston, Mitton, Preston, and part of Bickford, are townships 

 or hamlets of Penkridge, situated on the western stream which falls 

 into the Penk below Cuttlestone-bridge. Lovedale and Longridge 

 are also arable districts of this parish, on a stronger soil. The 

 heaviest clay soil is to the west of the Penk, that on the east in- 

 clining to gravel. Drayton, Woolgarston, Otherton, Rodbaston, 

 Kinvaston, and Water-Eaton, are all hamlets of Penkridge, gene- 

 rally upon a gravelly or light loamy soil. The township of Water- 

 Eaton extends south of Watling-street to the common of Calf- 

 heath, lately enclosed, and the principal part of which is in Penk- 

 ridge parish. 



At the small village of LAPLEY, about three miles west of Penk- 

 ridge, there was a Priory of Black Monks belonging to the Abbey 

 of St. Remigius, at Rheims, on whom it was bestowed by Aylmer, 

 Earl of Chester, in the time of Edward the Confessor. It was 

 afterwards granted by Henry the First to the College of Tong, in 

 Shropshire. The Church is an ancient building of stone, with a 

 square tower. 



SHARESHILL, which includes Saredon Great and Little, Lather- 

 ford, and Saredon mill, is a small parish in the south-east angle of 

 Cuttlestone hundred. 



The village of Shareshill is pleasantly situated on an eminence, 

 on the summit of which stands the church. It contains several 

 well-built houses ; some of the families reside in tenements of their 

 own, and others are tenants. The population of the parish in 181 1, 

 was 493 persons, who were chiefly employed in agriculture. The 

 land about the village is a good sound loam, well adapted to grain 

 and turnips, as well as pasturage. The principal land proprietors 

 are Robert Smith, Esq. of Appleby, Leicestershire, who resides on 

 a part of his own estate, and the Rev. J. H. Petit, who resides 

 at Hilton-hall, but who has a good estate here, and is the present 



