The main source of information about the Lilleshall Estate is the Lilleshall Collection at Shropshire Archives. This has been in the care of the Archives since the 1950s but was legally acquired with a National Heritage Fund grant in 2005, which is also funded photographing most of the documents and making them available on microfiche. The collection starts with medieval documents from the time of the Lilleshall Abbey which were acquired by the Leveson-Gower family along with the land, and finishes with the final auction documents and contracts when the estate was dissolved in the 1910s.
The Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent archives service has a Sutherland Collection with the Trentham Estate archives and many family documents from their London residence, Stafford House (now Lancaster House). Some material relevant to the Lilleshall Estate may also have ended up in Staffordshire.
The census of England and Wales took place every ten years from 1841 to 1931 and provides name, address, and occupation. This is extremely useful in understanding how the estate was using its houses and cottages in different areas, and how work correlated with location.
There are also some key books:
- “An account of the improvements on the estates of the Marquess of Stafford, in the counties of Stafford and Salop, and on the estate of Sutherland” by James Loch.
- “A History of the County of Shropshire”
- Volume 2 (religious houses) has 10 pages on the history of Lilleshall Abbey
- Volume 11 (Telford) covers the parish of Lilleshall
- The 1912, 1914 and 1917 Lilleshall Estate sale catalogues