The area occupied by the Lilleshall Estate had some notable archaeological sites and artefacts, some of which were known while it was owned by the Leveson-Gower family and some of which have only been discovered more recently. Part of the south boundary of the estate was the ancient route of Watling Street, which ran 275 miles from Dover on the English Channel to Wroxeter on the River Severn, a few miles west of the estate. Watling Street originally predated the Roman invasion of Britain and they established Wroxeter (Viroconium Cornoviorum) as a fort and then city for the local Cornovii tribe, who had previously used a hill fort on the Wrekin as their capital. Wroxeter was the largest city in Roman Britain at one point, and the excavated ruins are now preserved by English Heritage and open to the public.
Back on the boundary of the estate, the small Roman town of Uxacona (or Vxacona) stood on the high ground of the north side of Watling Street, west of the modern day crematorium and the former Redhill Plantation.
Going further back, Lilleshall Hill was probably an Iron Age hill fort but there doesn’t appear to be any archaeological evidence for it. However, Wall Camp on the Weald Moors was a fort on a low hill surrounded by the wetlands before they began to be drained 2000 years later.
Further north, there is an enclosed Iron Age farmstead on Pave Lane.
The area has also produced artefacts, either during digs or as random finds. Some are in the Shrewsbury Museum, including this Neolithic stone axe found at Lilleshall.
