The main lane running through the village is a
Roman road, which ran between the
Roman settlements and forts at
Leintwardine and
Wroxeter. The village takes its name from the
Anglo-Saxon saint
Wigstan who was the grandson of the King of
Mercia. He was martyred at this location by his greatuncle. His burial took place at his family crypt at the abbey of Rependon (now known as
Repton) the Mercian capital, memorialized as
St. Wystan upon his canonization (one of the oldest unaltered places of Christian worship in England). The
Saxon suffix
stow means (enclosed) place. An uncle of
W(ystan) H(ugh) Auden (named for the eponymous saint spelled
Wystan by his father who was an alumnus of Repton school built on the remains of the Abbey) wrote the entry for Wistanstow in
Little Guide to Shropshire Wistanstow has a splendid
mock Tudor village hall that was given to the village in 1925 by a local landowner. This enormous "blackandwhite" building included cottages for the district nurse and resident caretaker. The village has a small church primary school. At the other end of the village opposite Manor Farm is the Plough Inn. Just behind was a small independent
real ale brewery, "Wood's", founded in 1980, which closed under "adverse trading conditions" in 2022 following the
COVID-19 pandemic. In 1984, both the Plough and the brewery were featured as the final destination on a Shropshire edition of
Treasure Hunt, with
Anneka Rice pulling herself a pint of real ale to complete the game. "The Smithy" is the village's community shop which was officially opened by the actor
Pete Postlethwaite OBE, a local parishioner in April 2000. Once the workplace of a local
blacksmith and little more than the size of a shed, the shop stocks all the basics, with as much as possible sourced from local suppliers. ==See also==