North Shropshire Tourism - a complete guide to the North of the Shropshire county

Hodnet

Hodnet is the most attractive small village in North Shropshire, eight kilometres south-west of Market Drayton and it is filled with Shropshire's typically beautiful black and white houses. The parish church of St. Luke's is largely 14th century, although records indicate that a church has been sited at Hodnet, since at least 1086, and has a unique octagonal Church Tower. The Church was for fifteen years in the rectorship of Reginald Heber, the famous Victorian hymn-writer. The current church has a Nuremberg Bible, printed in 1479.

Hodnet's centrepiece, for which it most well-known, is its Hall and Gardens which were started in 1921 by Brigadier A.G.W. Heber-Percy, who spend 30 years transforming the landscape from a boggy marsh to splendid formal garden. Today the 19th century mansion stands in the grounds, which are open to groups by appointment. The Heber-Percy family still lives in the ancestral home. There is also evidence that at some time during the late eleventh or early twelfth century a mote and bailey castle was erected at Hodnet, of which some small earthworks survive.