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Along the Moors - Kynersley
On the Doles
Despite the difficulties presented to villagers by Kynnersley’s isolated situation, Reverend Plaxton was quick to point out the high number of elderly parishioners in his charge when he arrived there; one in every six of whom he estimated to be 60 years and upwards, with some aged between 85 and 90! Could it have been that the inhabitants owed their longevity to the watery surroundings? While that is impossible to quantify, the wetlands certainly proved to be an important source of sustenance for generations of villagers…
Kynnersley folk enjoyed the right to cut local peat for domestic fuel on the moors over the course of many centuries; a privilege that was enshrined in the leases of tenants of the Lilleshall estate from at least 1569. Local maps of the era record peat pits and diggings belonging to villagers at a number of locations, including the Eylemoor (southwest of The Wall), the Gawmoors (northwest of Rodway Bridge) and Waters Upton Moor — where Kynnersley men are known to have maintained ‘doles’ in the early 17th Century. In his reminiscences, Reverend Plaxton commented that the practice still went on in his time, with peat measuring ‘three to four feet thick’ still present in some parts of the lordship. However, peat cutting appears to have died out by the mid 1800s, when agricultural improvements had rendered the moorland deposits unusable as fuel.