12 - The Cockshutt Caperz Traditional Geocache

Wrockwardine Wood was probably identical with the woodland 1 league long and ½ league broad recorded in Domesday. Referred to as the King's Wood c. 1130, it was claimed in 1235 to be well stocked with oaks and underwood. It was within the royal forest of Mount Gilbert or the Wrekin. By c. 1290 assorting had begun, and it may have increased following disafforestation in 1301. Pigs were pastured in 'Kingshay' in 1397-8 and 1413-14. The area was still known as King's wood c. 1577. Much of the surviving woodland was probably cleared in the century after 1650 as mining expanded. A great deal of timber was sold to the Coalbrookdale Co. for the building of the Horsehay ironworks in 1754. The woodland then remaining, at the Nabb and on Cockshutt Piece, was coppiced but by 1847 virtually no woodland remained. In the later 19th century, with the decline of mining, woodland began to reappear on Cockshutt Piece, which was partly wooded in 1982.

Wrockwardine Wood, north-east of Oakengates town centre, was originally a detached piece of woodland, later a township, belonging to the manor and parish of Wrockwardine, the rest of which lay 7 km. to the west. The township, the area here treated, contained 515 a. in 1882. Its eastern and western boundaries followed no natural features or roads for any significant distance. On the south it was bounded by Watling Street. The northern boundary was that part of the ancient Wellington-Newport road known by 1288 as Trench Way (later Trench Road), a name suggesting that the wood was cleared back from it in the early Middle Ages. (From Watling Street the ground falls sharply, giving extensive views north across the township. In 1884 the township became a civil parish and was enlarged to 914 a. by the transfer of Hortonwood and part of Trench from the parish of Eyton upon the Weald Moors, and of an adjoining detachment from Preston upon the Weald Moors. In 1898 the civil parish was included in the new urban district of Oakengates. Wrockwardine Wood was included within the designated area of Telford new town in 1968.

The Middle Coal Measures, lying close to the surface across most of the southern half of the township, were intensively mined from the 17th to the 19th century. Across the lower, northern half of the township boulder clay and small outcrops of sandstone from the Hadley and Coalport formations occur. Some sand and gravel lies along Trench Road.

There was little settlement in the township in the Middle Ages. Part of the settlement at Quam Pool apparently lay in Wrockwardine Wood, and Quam Pool township made presentments at Wrockwardine manor courts between 1397 and 1457. A moat in the north part of the township probably marked the site of the farm or lodge of a medieval assart. By the mid 17th century there were settlements along the roads bounding the township to north and south. The development of coal and ironstone mining in the 18th and 19th centuries may have accounted for the scatters of squatters' cottages south-west of Cockshutt Piece and north-east of Ball's coppice. In the earlier 19th century there was some building in the north part of the township around the glassworks and the new church. In the later 19th century, however, much more extensive building began to cover the centre and south part of the township with new streets and works. Much of the north remained undeveloped until the 20th century when new estates were built there by the Oakengates urban district council and, from the 1960s, speculative builders and Wrekin district council.

The routes are buggy friendly apart from the last 5-30 metres of some of the cache`s, you may need a little help in a few areas as the terrain can get a little steep in places.>