Pontesbury is a large village and civil parish in Shropshire and is approximately eight miles southwest of the county town of Shrewsbury. In the 2011 census, its population was 3,227. The village of Minsterley is just over a mile further southwest. The A488 road runs through the village, on its way from Shrewsbury to Bishop's Castle. The Rea Brook flows close by to the north with the village itself nestling on the northern edge of the Shropshire Hills AONB. Shropshire County Council in their current Place Plan detail the development strategy and refer to Pontesbury and neighbouring Minsterley as towns.
Several housing developments are reshaping the village, with 86 new homes named Cricketer's Meadow, being added at Hall Bank, and 25 homes named Young's Piece, being built on the site of a former lead smelting area on Minsterley Road. Soil samples taken at the site of Young's Piece showed lead contamination was in excess of the applicable threshold level / critical concentration.
Education
The village is home of a comprehensive school, the Mary Webb School and Science College, named after the local novelist Mary Webb, which serves most of the surrounding villages for pupils age 11–16, on whose premises is the Mary Webb Sports Centre, usable by the public out of school hours. There is also a primary school, on whose premises also meet a pre-school playgroup formed 1990. There is also a nursery school, for children aged 3 months to 4 years, called The Ark, on Hall Bank.
Other public amenities and services
Pontesbury is one of the largest villages in Shropshire and so is host to a wide range of local services including independent local shops selling local produce and three public houses The village also contains a medical practice, dental surgery, post office, police station, public library, public hall and cemetery.
Industries and trade
The village has a long mining history, once linked to Snailbeach and Hanwood via the Minsterley branch line and the Snailbeach District Railways, it supplied local industry with coal, lead, iron and stone. Although the railway tracks are no longer there, the route that it took can still be walked, where some stations and sidings remain. Nearby Poles Coppice, around half-a-mile south of the village, contains two former quarries and is now a countryside recreation area.
Churches
In the centre of the village sits St George's Church of England parish church, the origins of which can be traced to about 1250 AD but due to the site's circular graveyard shape may indicate a much more ancient site of Anglo Saxon or even Celtic origin. The church itself however was largely restored in the 19th century, following the collapse of the mediaeval tower between 1820 and 1825. For a village, population c 3,000, it is large, and has a very active and lively congregation. The churchyard contains the outdoor parish war memorial. The present Portland stone cross, erected 1963, replaced an earlier elaborate cross by Temple Lushington Moore and unveiled in 1921, which bore a crucifix and images of the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene and St George and the Dragon but had become dilapidated and was dismantled in 1960. There are also active Baptist, Methodist and Congregationalist Churches. The Salvation Army had a barracks in Pontesbury between about 1888–1894.
Hill
Nearby is Earl's Hill, which is the site of an Iron Agehillfort built around 600 B.C. and making it a Scheduled Ancient Monument and also designated an SSSI for its wildlife value. It was Shropshire Wildlife Trust's first nature reserve in 1964. Earl's Hill is PreCambrian in origin, being formed approximately 650 million years ago as a result of volcanic activity along the Pontesford-Linley fault.
William J. Oliver also known as Oliver the Spy, was a police informer and supposed agent provocateur at a time of social unrest, immediately after the Napoleonic Wars. He claimed to be from Pontesbury
Mary Webb, author of Precious Bane, The Golden Arrow and Gone to Earth, she lived in Rose Cottage near Pontesbury between 1914 and 1916 when The Golden Arrow was published.
D. H. Lawrence visited Pontesbury and it later appeared in his novella St Mawr.
