local Shire reeve or sheriff, whose duty it was to keep the King's forest and manor well stocked and maintained. In 1226, Henry III visited Shrewsbury to meet his brother-in-law, Prince Llewelyn ap Gruffyd of Wales. Henry offered Condover to Llewelyn as a goodwill gesture, but sustained wars and skirmishes between England and Wales throughout the 13th century ensured that stable tenure of Condover manor and Hundred did not settle for nearly 300 years. Later history The Royal manor passed in and out of Crown tenure until the reign of Elizabeth I when it was sold to the Vynar family. In turn the Condover manor lands were purchased in 1586 by Chief Justice Thomas Owen, a Member of Parliament and Recorder of Shrewsbury. Owen began the building of the current Condover Hall but died before its completion. The hall remained in the Owen family and its descendants for over 300 years. John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870–72 describes Condover: "CONDOVER, a village, a parish, a sub-district, and a hundred, in Salop. The village stands on an affluent of the river Severn, adjacent to the Shrewsbury and Hereford Railway, 4½ miles S[outh] of Shrewsbury; and has a station on the railway, and a post office under Shrewsbury. The parish includes also the villages of Chatford and Dorrington. Acres, 7,422. Real property, £14,431. Pop[ulation]., 1,871. Houses, 376. The property is subdivided. Condover House [sic- Hall] is the seat of E. W. S. Owen, Esq[uire].; and was built, about 1590, by Chief Justice Owen. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Lichfield. Value, £258.* Patron, R. Cholmondely, Esq. The church is chiefly Norman; contains monuments of the Owens, one of them by Roubiliac; and is good. The p[erpetual]. curacy of Dorrington is a separate benefice. Charities, £66. -The sub-district is in Atcham district; and contains fourteen parishes. Acres, 37,057. Pop., 6,063. Houses, 1,157. -The hundred includes most of the sub-district; extends considerably beyond it; and is cut into the divisions of Condover and Cound. Acres, 25,630 and 19,684. Pop[ulation]. of the whole, 6,551. Houses, 1,261." In 1930 GWR 4900 Class steam locomotive No. 4915 was built and named Condover Hall. It was in regular service until British Railways withdrew it 1965. In the 1980s Hornby Railways produced an electric model of the engine. Second World War RAF Condover was opened in August 1942 and was used