distant three miles N.E. of the town on the Chester road, is a township
in the parish of St. Mary, Shrewsbury. The church, a small humble
structure, has been so effectually repaired by the modern goths with red
stone and brick, that no reasonable conjecture can now be formed as to
the period of its erection. A wooden loft issues from the west end, and
inside the building is a curious ancient font, that will admit of total
immersion, which has no doubt stood here for several centuries.
The fine old mansion near the church was formerly the residence of the
ancient family of Ireland, who purchased this manor {215} on the
dissolution of Shrewsbury Abbey.
A bridle road across a field leads to Albright Hussey and Battlefield.
The former was the moated mansion of the Husseys, Barkers, and Corbets,
but is now converted into a farm house. Here was a chapel, dedicated to
Saint John the Baptist, as appears by the grant of the land on which
Battlefield church stands from Henry IV. to Roger Ive, of Leaton, who is
there described as rector of the chapel of St. John the Baptist at
Albright Hussey, and which chapel was by the said grant for ever annexed
to the collegiate church of Battlefield; and Richard Hussey and his heirs
were to be perpetual patrons of the same. The only vestige of the chapel
is an old arch in a barn called the “chapel barn.”