Chirbury was once a hundred, formed out of an earlier, and larger, hundred (of which Chirbury was the chief settlement) called Witentreu or Wittery (a placename that continues to this day in Whittery Wood, near to the village) which included places now in Wales. Later Chirbury was a rural district (from 1894 to 1934) — the Chirbury Rural District. The hundred included a detached township near Clun — Guilden Down. In 1987 the parishes of Chirbury and Brompton and Rhiston merged to form the present-day civil parish of Chirbury with Brompton. Historically Cherbury was the more usual spelling of Chirbury.