Shrewsbury

views updated May 17 2018

Shrewsbury. County town of Shropshire, its old centre built on a defensive hill nearly surrounded by the river Severn. It has been a regional centre since Anglo-Saxon times, a military strong point in the Welsh marches, and a centre of cloth trading and manufacture from the Middle Ages to the 19th cent. In the 16th and early 17th cents. it was also, with Ludlow, a centre of the Council for Wales in the Marches. It has a fine legacy of historic buildings, especially timber-framed houses of the Tudor and Stuart period. Holy Cross abbey (Benedictine), near the English bridge, has a fine early Norman nave. There is a very pleasant riverside walk, past the boathouses of Shrewsbury school, and outside the old school (c.1600) is a seated statue of Charles Darwin, one of the distinguished former pupils. The railway station nearby is jolly mock Tudor.

David M. Palliser/ and Professor J. A. Cannon