A gazetteer of the many fine Shropshire country houses, which covers the architecture, the owners' family history, and the social and economic circumstances that affected them.

The PREEN FAMILY HISTORY STUDY GROUP exists to research the family. It organises an Annual Reunion and is preparing a History of the Preen Family in four volumes. DNA analysis has shown that the Preen Family is divided into three groups, each with a common ancestor in the seventeenth century. Volume One will discuss the early history of the family and then Volumes Two to Four will each cover one of the three groups. This book is Volume Four describing the Bridgnorth Group. The Bridgnorth Group are descended from Frank and Fanny Preen who lived in Mill Street Bridgnorth in the 1640s and the book traces their descendants as they spread throughout the West Midlands and later throughout the world. It ends with the families who appeared in the 1911 census.

Incorporating the Shropshire Parish Register Society.

One of the various family legends says that two German brothers came to England with William the Conqueror and set up home at Gwersyllt near Wrexham which, like most legends, contains an element of truth. When the family first appears on the pages of recorded history, eventually to adopt the name of de Leyis (Lee) and variants, they were living in the hamlet of Calton near Edensor and Bakewell. Their house was in sight of Lindop Wood and from where Robert de Leyis, son of Henry de Leyis changed his name to de Lindop for reasons that remain a mystery. Clearly, he was the first to adopt that surname and therefore this book charts the Lindop Family name back to its origins. The author follows the family as it moved from Derbyshire to Wybunbury in Cheshire and then through that County to his own branch of the family which operated a draper's shop in Chester. He also traces the Lindops who were fishmongers in Liverpool and discovers other miscellaneous fragments of the family history.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1859.