The village of Tong, Shropshire is located on the Shropshire
- Staffordshire county boundary north west of Birmingham, UK.
Its northern boundary is Watling Street (A5), an important Roman road leading from London to Holyhead.
Tong parish is dissected by the A41 - a major trunk road from London to Chester.
Another road, now re-routed and all but forgotten is the road South to Worcester which was a highway up to the nineteenth century.
From the top of Tong Hill the ancient landmark of the Wrekin is seen to the West and on a clear day the distant blue mountains of Wales
can be made out behind it.
It is an area of rolling hills and steep sided valleys, located on a geographical line that disects England, water to the South goes into the River Worfe and then in
turn into the mighty River Severn emptying into the Bristol Channel. To the north on the flatter Cheshire plain the water flows north and east to reach the
River Trent before that eventually empties into the North Sea.
The name of Tong is most likely derived from the 'tongue' of land formed by the two streams that define the southern and western boundaries of the parish.
To the East are remnants of the ancient oak woodland that provided hunting grounds - and hiding places for King Charles II after the Battle of Worcester in 1651.
To the North is Weston Park the ancient seat of the Bridgeman family (the Earls of Bradford),
now a venue of pop concerts and prestigious meeting place (Northern Ireland talks in July 2001 and
world G8 leaders in 1998).
By contrast just to the south is the large R.A.F. training base at Cosford which houses an extensive aeronautical museum.
The parish of Tong covers twelve square miles with two main clusters of houses at Tong and Tong Norton. It had 208 inhabitants spread amongst 100 houses in 2001, the census information shows substantial changes over time. In 1841 there were 564 inhabitants in 114 houses. The occupations have changed too, in 1851 about 60% of people were employed in agriculture or related trades but by 2001 this had declined to 17%. Within easy reach of Telford and Wolverhampton its role is now mainly as a home for commuters.
Pages on this web site give details of the Tong Castle, magnificent Church and ecclesiastical College. Interwoven with Tong are the Lords of the Manor and it is the Durants that have had most the most impact. However the story is not complete without looking at the Shakespearean and Dickensian connections.
To get an overall impression of what was going on at Tong look at the Historical Timeline page.
Map of the parish of Tong
Map of the centre of the Village of Tong
Copyright © 2007, 2008 Discovering Tong