Baschurch

Baschurch is a large village and civil parish in Shropshire, England. It lies in the north of Shropshire. The village had a population of 2,503 as of the 2011 census. Shrewsbury is to the south-east, Oswestry is to the north-west, and Wem is to the north-east of Baschurch. The village is also close to Ruyton-XI-Towns. The earliest references to Baschurch are under its Welsh name Eglwyssau Bassa (Churches of Bassa), in a seven-stanza englyn-poem of the same name found in the Welsh cycle of poems called Canu Heledd, generally thought to date to the ninth century:Jenny Rowland, Early Welsh Saga Poetry: A Study and Edition of the ‘Englynion''' (Cambridge: Brewer, 1990), p. 389 for dating, pp. 435-36 for edition, p. 487 for translation [stanzas 45-51]. The English name Baschurch first appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Bascherche, and both names may derive from an Anglo-Saxon personal name Bass(a). Thus the name in Canu Heledd is a Brittonic version of an English name. Local tradition holds that the Berth Pool and its ancient earthworks outside the village are the resting place of the legendary King Arthur. In medieval times, several properties in the parish, including Adcote Mill, were owned by Haughmond Abbey near Shrewsbury. Baschurch had a township called Boreatton, or Bratton, standing on the banks of the River Perry, with a country house called Bratton House. The world's first orthopaedic hospital was established at Florence House in Baschurch by Sir Robert Jones and Dame Agnes Hunt in 1900 as a convalescent home for crippled children and later to treat wounded from the First World War. The hospital moved to Oswestry in 1921. In 2000 a large stone made of local sandstone was erected in the modern centre of the village to commemorate the Millennium. Similar smaller stones were erected in neighbouring communities. A major feature of the village is All Saints' Church (Church of England) which is one of the oldest standing structures in the village (perhaps the oldest).