Description:Hilderstone lies east of Stone. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon name of ‘Hildewulf’ meaning ‘warrior wolf’ and ‘tun’, meaning farm. At the time of the Domesday Survey of 1086, the manor of Helduluestone, as it was called, was held by Robert de Stafford. Hilderstone has a long agricultural tradition since, at the time of Domesday, there was enough arable land in the manor to support three plough teams. There was also about 700 acres of woodland at the time.
Nine families are recorded in Hilderstone in 1532-33. In 1666, 40 people in the constablewick of Hilderstone were assessed for the payment of the hearth tax, with a further 15 being not judged not chargeable for tax. The largest house, the forerunner of the present Hilderstone Hall, was occupied by John Gerrard, esquire, and had 12 hearths. The hall and its accompanying estate passed through a variety of owners between the late 17th and mid 18th centuries, by which time it was in the hands of the Bourne family. The Bournes were pottery manufacturers and rebuilt the hall in about 1750. It is now a residential home.
Hilderstone was a chapelry of the ecclesiastical parish of Stone and did not have its own church until the 19th century. The parish church of Christ Church was built in 1827-29 to the design of Thomas Trubshawe, one of the Trubshawe dynasty of builders and architects from nearby Haywood. It was paid for by Ralph Bourne, to whom there is a memorial in the church. The interior still contains the box pews and an enamelled east window. Richard Gerrard of Hilderstone is listed as a papist at the time of the Popish Plot in 1680.
By the 19th century Hilderstone was very much a village dominated by agriculture, with a number of farms, supported by agriculturally-related crafts and trades within the village. The school, also provided originally by the Bourne family, was opened in 1819 and closed in 1981.