PLACE NAME
A former abbey in Shropshire, founded between 1145 and 1148 for a band of rather austere monks from Dorchester Abbey in Oxfordshire. It takes it name from the area of Lilleshall Hill, which had been populated about a century before. It was Linleshelle in 1086, Lylyshull in 1513 and Lilleshall in 1684. It means Lill’s Hill, hill coming from the Old English hyll, and the first element being a personal name. Robert William Eyton in his Victoria County History of 1973 says the abbey was founded on the initiative of two brothers, Richard de Belmeis, Archdeacon of Middlesex and dean of the college of St Alkmund in Shrewsbury, and Philip de Belmeis, lord of Tong, Shropshire. By the 13thCentury the abbey had become one of great prestige, having been endowed with much land, however through mismanagement during the 14thCentury, it ran into financial difficulties. It escaped the first dissolution during King Henry VIII’s cull of the monasteries, but surrendered during the second in 1538. Like many of the roads on the St Helier’s estate this is named after British monasteries and abbeys in remembrance of the area’s historic ownership by Westminster Abbey. The road names are in alphabetical order, of which Aberconway Road in the north west of the estate is first.
