Withington has sat on the sidelines of national history as important events happened nearby, these included the Battle of Shrewsbury at Battlefield and an important civil war siege at High Ercall. It must have seen changes as the Saxon settlement of Wietone, the village in the willows, became part of the lands of the Norman Roger de Montgomery, William 1's cousin: later changes brought in land ownership by Haughmond Abbey, the Haughtons, the Corbet and the Tayleur estates. The earliest reference to a church here is 1160.