England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Milson St George

The Parish

The parish of Milson lies in the extreme southeast of Shropshire forming a short stretch of the county's border with neighbouring Worcestershire. Milson is located a little over 3 miles southwest of the small town of Cleobury Mortimer and sits within an area devoid of significant numbered roads, the closest such road being the A4117 which links Cleobury Mortimer with Ludlow and which lies around 3 miles to the north of Milson. Milson is a tiny community consisting principally of a single short run of properties along a lane running north from the church. Like most Shropshire parishes it is pastoral farming that is dominant within the local economy, cattle for both beef and dairy the predominant source of revenue. Milson is drained southwards by the Mill Brook which soon meets in quick succession the Rivers Rea and then Teme, the Teme heads eastwards to meet the Severn and the latter takes water to the sea through the Bristol Channel. Milson is sited at around 140 metres above the sea in rolling almost hilly countryside, northwards the 200 metre contour is breached to the west of Cleobury Mortimer. Milson was a small parish, until 1656 a chapelry of nearby Neen Sollars, it covered only a little over 1,000 acres and would have supported merely 150 parishioners. Equally small in Domesday times Milson recorded only 6 households for its landholder Osborn, the son of Richard, just 3 ploughs made it to the asset count.

The Church

St George's church sits at the southern end of the small village, tucked away from the lane which runs to the southwest it is accessed by a short dead-end lane to the east which it shares with a few cottages. Like many small and isolated churches its preserved most of its fabric from the earliest times, the majority of what we see dates from the 12th century Norman Romanesque period. Both nave and chancel date from this period and both show small and narrow windows characteristic of those times on both northern and southern faces. Also Norman but slightly later is the church's southern doorway with some good carving on show. To the west sits a squat 2-stage tower with its basal stages dating from the Early English Gothic period of the 13th century, Pevsner notes a date on a bell in the belfry as of 1723 and infers that date to both the singled top stage and pyramidal roof. Returning to the medieval the 14th century and Decorated in style is represented by the timber-framed south porch, also of the later medieval period is the chancel's eastern wall which was rebuilt at that time. A typical Victorian restoration completes the picture, here it came in 1865 and was a rather heavy-handed piece of work, Pevsner simply detested the replacement chancel arch and hammerbeam roof which it inserted. Access is by Church Court Barns where a triangular parking area serving church and cottages sits outside the churchyard, the church has a few trees clustered around its western end restricting those aspects but otherwise is a straightforward exercise for the photographer.