Old Photographs: Peplow

Nostalgic Photographs of Peplow

Three black and white photographs of Peplow taken by Geoff Fletcher. This last one of his earliest photographs. In 1958 the Staniers who lived at Peplow Hall hired a ditch dredging company to dredge the lake. This is the Dutch built device they used. The photograph was taken on a 120 roll film on a camera with a plastic lens. It was digitised by scanning the negative.


A landmark that has disappeared in recent years is the “horseshoe girdle” at the disused smithy by Peplow crossroads. We are not sure how many years it took for the blacksmiths to accumulate this pile of used horseshoes, nor how many there were in total, but the tree was pretty much surrounded when the photo below was taken in the mid to late 1990’s. In 2009 the horsehoes/tree were removed due to safety concerns, and the site as a whole tidied up.


Former Weobley railway bridge being demolished in 1980, as part of road improvements to the A442 south of Hodnet

Courtesy Shropshire Star
Former Weobley railway bridge being demolished in 1980, as part of road improvements to A442 south of Hodnet

This photo shows the half demolished former ‘hump backed’ railway line bridge at Weobley, which was an awkward feature of the road – as evidenced in some of Gerald Mothershaw’s local history books, where he mentioned that the parapets were demolished several times, or grounding took place, when large vehicles crossed it, especially WW II transport vehicles heading to/from nearby military bases.

Ther house in the background, Weobley Smallholding, is still there and if you look carefully when passing, some of the former railway line fence posts either side of the road indicate the original railway route.