• Church Stretton - In 1337, it was Chirchstretton. Any Roman road which was paved was called stratum (street) because of the layers or strata of stone (in this case it is Watling Street). Hence, any tun (enclosure) near a Roman street could be called Stretton or Stratton. The "church" in this case is the 12th century St Lawrence Church. The prefix was to distinguish it from nearby villages All Stretton and Little Stretton.

The area lies astride the Church Stretton Fault and atop some of the oldest rocks in England - formed over 560 mya. On 2 April 1990, another nearby fault - the Pontesford-Linley Fault - registered an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.1 on the Richter scale, known as the Bishop's Castle earthquake. The area also plays a part in the history of geology: the three major subdivsions of the Lower Paleozoic are named for local celtic tribes - Cambrian, Ordovician & Silurian. Also, Comley Quarry is about 2.5 miles (4 km) from the town and the first site in the British Isles where trilobites were recorded.

People have lived in the Stretton Gap for thousands of years; an Iron Age hillfort on Caer Caradoc overlooks the town. The town was granted a market charter by King John in 1214, and the market is still held every Thursday and Saturday, in the square on the High Street. Much of the town centre was destroyed by fire in 1593 and many of the present half timbered buildings in the town centre date from the time of the rebuilding.

During the 18th century, Church Stretton began to develop as a spa town. Historically the town was known for its textiles, specifically in Carding Mill Valley. Carding Mill was built in the 18th century, and named after a stage in making cloth, the three stages being carding, spinning and weaving. Carding would have been done by children, and involved using a hand-card that removed and untangled short fibres from the mass of raw material. The cards were wooden blocks with handles and covered in metal spikes, which were angled, (to make it easier to untangle) and set in leather. When untangled, the material would be spun, and then weaved into the final product.

The carding mill closed at the beginning of the 20th century. The mill is still in the valley today, but has been converted into luxury flats. The valley it was in took the name "Carding Mill Valley", and is now a tourist attraction owned by the National Trust.

Church Stretton was nicknamed Little Switzerland during its growth in the late Victorian and Edwardian periods, because of the way many houses hug the hillside, the surrounding mountainous landscape, and because the town is said to have been run like clockwork.

The Long Mynd Hotel on Cunnery Road was built in 1900, originally as the Hydro, at a time when the town was popular as a spa. Today it continues as a hotel and has its own swimming pool and woodland trails; it is a wedding and conference venue.

A small town hall stood on the High Street but was demolished in the 1960s and the site has become the town's square, used to hold markets on. Today the Silvester Horne Institute is the town's main meeting place for societies, public meetings & exhibitions and polling, and the town council have their offices nearby on the High Street. Additionally there is the Mayfair Community Centre on Easthope Road and the St Lawrence's Parish Hall on Church Street.

The town is located within the civil parish of Church Stretton, and is administered by a town council, which also manages the neighbouring villages of All Stretton, Little Stretton, and the hamlets of Minton and Hamperley. At the 2001 census, the parish's population was 4,186. The parish is divided into four wards: Church Stretton North (represented by four councillors on the town council), Church Stretton South (represented by five councillors), All Stretton and Little Stretton (each represented by two councillors). Church Stretton is part of the Shropshire Council electoral division of Church Stretton and Craven Arms.

On a national level, Church Stretton is located within the Ludlow constituency, and the current MP for that constituency is Philip Dunne, a Conservative MP.

Church Stretton is located approximately 13 miles (21 km) south of Shropshire's county town, Shrewsbury. The town is dominated by the surrounding hills, including the huge Long Mynd massif to the west, and Caer Caradoc Hill, and the adjacent hills to the east. The Long Mynd massif provides the town with both its views, and the water that the town's economy is based around. The water comes from an underground glacial lake[citation needed], and is extracted from boreholes at various places on the Long Mynd.

Church Stretton effectively lies at a saddle point - the railway station and the Crossways industrial estate lie roughly at this position, which is at 187m above sea level. The High Street through the town centre runs at an altitude of 194 to 195m. Because of its position at a saddle point, water drains away from the town in two directions - to the north (to the Cound and then the Severn) and to the south (to the Onny and then the Teme). Parts of the town are subject to flooding after heavy rain and in 2000 serious flooding closed the railway line through the town.

The historic core of the town lies around the church and along the High Street. With the building of the railway line and station in 1852, the town began to grow towards the new station, along what was at first known as Station Road, but since 1884 as Sandford Avenue. Today the two main streets of the town centre are the High Street and Sandford Avenue.

Cunnery is a hillside and collection of houses to the west of the town centre and includes the Long Mynd Hotel. Worlds End (or Worldsend) is where the Ludlow Road curves round the foot of the hillside to the south of the Long Mynd Hotel. To the north of the town centre is an area called Ashbrook; here the Carding Mill Valley meets the town. On the eastern side of the A49 road are the areas of Battle Field (or Battlefield) and Hazler; on Hazler Hill is a transmitter for local radio (BBC Radio Shropshire broadcast from here on 90FM). Battle Field is named for the legend that Caer Caradoc was the site of the last stand of Caractacus against the Roman legions during the Roman conquest of Britain, and that after the battle he hid in the cave near its summit.