A look around Shropshire's 'poshest' village - and how we're supposed to pronounce it

While there is, technically, a village of Cound - the Telegraph's article was referring to the parish, a 15-kilometre squared patch of rural paradise that includes a few handfuls of chocolate box homes on windy country roads.

With no village shop or village school and the parish pub (yes, singular) a 40-minute walk for most - it could be hard to argue that there was a village there at all were it not for Cound Church.

But there is a jam-packed, unmanned village bookshop sitting between the church and Guildhall - that is currently advertising, amongst other things, a gin-tasting evening and 'Flicks in the Sticks' with pre-film meals.

Around the corner, a large home is selling homemade jam and fudge from an honesty cupboard. It's hard to get more village-y than that.

At the last count, the parish was home to 474 residents, which makes the fact there are a whopping 68 listed buildings in Cound even more impressive.

It's actually the second time that the parish has made it onto the Telegraph's 'posh' list, having achieved the accolade of Shropshire's poshest back in 2022.

In 2023, the crown went to Hodnet - whose locals scoffed at the idea that they were they were well-to-do.

But at least one Cound local, 55-year-old Adam York thought the Telegraph made somewhat of a fair assessment.

Having moved to the rural idyll 12 years ago from Leicester, Adam considered the whole of the county to be worthy of the title.

"Shropshire's posh," he said. "I've never met so many people that went to public schools. I didn't come across any when I was in Leicester but here there are lots."

The Telegraph's guide commends the village for its close-knit community with a church, tennis club and cricket club, which Adam thought was fair.

"There is a lovely community here - the Guildhall puts on a lot of events and they have a fete at the church.

"There are two groups I would say, there are the public school fraternity and everyone else. Everyone's friendly enough of course, but the two don't mix."

Adam was drawn to the town because of the affordability of his then run-down former schoolhouse (which is, while striking, not one of the 68 listed buildings in Cound).

"I could never have afforded this in Leicester," he said, "even in the state it was in."

Those after a bargain today though will be in for some mighty disappointment. At £605,524, average house prices in Cound are slightly lower than many of the other posh places on the list - but still well above the Shropshire average at £283k.

Walking around the deserted country roads, I was fortunate enough to catch two friends from out of town who loop the parish once a week on their regular walk.

72-year-old Hanna Lawrence and her friend Sue have been meeting up here in Cound almost every week for around six years, minus a year or two for the pandemic.

"We have a circuit that we do that we call the fisheries walk, which we do throughout the year, it's really lovely to see it through the seasons," Hanna, who lives in Telford, explained.

For the pair of them, it's not the plenty of historic buildings or close-knit community that brings them back to Cound each week - it's the landscape.

"It's a got a bit of everything," Hanna said. "There's fields and there's livestock, there's a place you might see a kingfisher, there's snowdrops and there's foraging opportunities, which I love."

Looking around at the quiet fields beginning to burst with yellow rapeseed, it's not hard to see why.

And after speaking to a few people, I'm even more confused on how we're saying Cound.

"I think it's like ShREWsbury/ShrOHsbury," said one person at the pub. The internet says COOnd, while Adam, who calls it COWnd told me locals say Cund.

If you want to get nerdy - and I do - it's likely the village name has its origins in the word 'condate', a common place-name in Celtic provinces of the Roman Empire meaning "confluence" (of two rivers).

In 1891, 20 per cent of all people in the UK recorded with the surname 'Conde' lived in Shropshire. So maybe everyone is wrong, and it's been Cond all along.