Morda is a village on the outskirts of the town of Oswestry, Shropshire, located near the border of England with Wales.

The village is named after the River Morda, a tributary of the River Vyrnwy.

History

The Morda Valley

Prior to 1792, Morda comprised the Drill Inn, perhaps one or two farms, and possibly a small flour mill. The following decades of the Industrial Revolution saw several factories and mills spring up along the banks of the village's namesake river, which provided a ready source of power for machinery. These mills were used to grind corn for flour, and to manufacture textiles, paper and animal products. Dwellings were also built at this time to house the local workforce, which comprised blacksmiths, wheelwrights and millwrights among other craftspeople. In 1860, local entrepreneur Thomas Savin constructed a railway to link the Morda pits to the main line of the Cambrian Railway at Whitehaven, near Llynclys.

Coal extraction had mostly ended in the Morda field by 1900. After the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 the workhouse's scope was extended to take in people from many more of the surrounding parishes.

The main workhouse was a substantial three-storey building that could accommodate up to 300 inmates. In 1891, a 16-bed isolation hospital was erected to the south-east of the workhouse. This later became the Oswestry and Chirk Isolation Hospital, and then Greenfields Hospital. The club was first founded as Morda F.C. in the 1800s, but folded in the mid-1900s. The club was reformed in the 1970s under the name of Morda United F.C. and played throughout central Wales and the West Midlands for more than 40 years. Notable success came in 1991, when the club became Mid Wales Football League champions. Following a period of dormancy from 2017, Morda United reformed and returned to playing action in 2020 in the Shropshire County Football League. However the club folded again in June 2025.

Other

Morda features heavily in Dear Thief (2014), a novel by the award-winning author Samantha Harvey.

References

  • Morda at A Vision of Britain through Time
  • Morda CofE Primary School
  • Morda United F.C.