Harley - Overview
According to the Saxons, the inhabitants of Harley were of the W[r]ocen saetna, people dependent on the Wrekin, referring back to the days when this land lay in the territory of the Cornovii whose tribal headquarters was in the hill-fort atop the Wrekin.

Under the Romans, this settlement developed into Viroconium Cornoviorum, the fourth largest town in Roman Britain. Its large population was supplied with food from the rich agricultural region around. It is probable that the lands around Harley provided some of that produce.

Near the village, just the other side of the A458 trunk-road, is a place marked on the map as Yarchester (called Hair Chester in 1844). Here was a Roman villa of considerable size and its fields must have covered a wide area. Don’t go looking for it now because it has been covered over, following its excavation in the middle of the last century.

More prosaically, Harley is ten miles or so south of the county town of Shrewsbury, at Ordnance Survey Grid Reference 597014. It has a population of less than 200 in around 65 households. These are spread over quite a wide area but centred on the parish church of St Mary, a site of worship for more than a thousand years.

There is a pretty village hall, once the school, made of the attractive local Kenley Gritstone and constructed in the style of the Gothic Revival of the mid 19th century. The oldest building is the Old Rectory, opposite the church, parts of which are believed to date from the 14th or early 15th century.

The village now is inhabited chiefly by retired folk, home-workers and those who commute to work in urban centres. However, there are still members of our community who earn their living from the land and there are many young families. It is a community still, despite the changes.