PITCHFORD, a parish in the hundred of CONDOVER, county of SALOP, 6 miles (S.S.E.) from Shrewsbury, containing 226 inhabitants. The living is a discharged rectory, in the archdeaconry of Salop, and diocese of Lichfield and Coventry, rated in the king's books at £6. 5. 5., and in the patronage of the Earl of Liverpool. The church, dedicated to St. Michael, is a very ancient fabric, and much admired for its neat appearance; in it are four curious and handsome alabaster monuments of the Otley family, also a very fine oaken figure of a Knight Templar, supposed to represent a Baron de Pitchford, a crusader, who was buried here. Pitchford derives its name from a stream issuing out of a rock, and forming a well near a brook or ford adjoining the village; the surface of the water being frequently covered with an oily substance, called Petroleum, and having a strong pitchy smell, from which has been extracted a medicinal preparation, called British oil, for which a patent was a few years since obtained: it is considered efficacious for burns, bruises, &c. The petty sessions for the division are held here.