VCH Shropshire: Shrewsbury Part Two: Institutions, Buildings and Culture

At the time when Shrewsbury Part One was published in 2014, quite a large part of Part Two had been drafted, and further text has been prepared since. At this time Shrewsbury Part Two was being managed by VCH Central Office in the Institute of Historical Research: responsibility for the completion of the volume has now passed to the VCH County Committee. As it may be a few years before the whole text of Part Two can be assembled and the volume goes to press, we are making the draft text as it is prepared available here as a public resource. The draft text will be added to this page from time to time.

It should be reiterated that the text presented here is not in a finalised form. It will undergo a process of editing before publication, and so what is presented here may differ from the final published text. We welcome corrections and suggestions (although readers should be aware that that we are writing to a word limit and it will not be possible to incorporate all additions).

As will be noticed from the scheme which follows, large parts of the volume remain uncommissioned (‘tbc’ = to be commissioned). We are interested in hearing from anyone who would be interested in contributing to the volume.

We are indebted to the Marc Fitch Trust and the Walker Trust for their financial aid which has allowed us to get so far, and to those colleagues who have generously given of their time and allowed their knowledge of Shrewsbury’s history to appear in this form.

0.1	List of abbreviations	drafted
1.0	Introduction
1.1	The River	commissioned
1.2	Shrewsbury as a regional centre	tbc
1.3	Shrewsbury as a garrison town	tbc
2.0	Local government and public services
2.1	Boundaries: liberties and borough	drafted
2.2	The government of the borough
2.2.1	The borough before the charter of 1638
2.2.2	The unreformed borough
2.2.3	The Commissioners of Improvement
2.2.4	The reformed borough
2.2.5	The twentieth-century borough
2.3	Municipal buildings	draft updated 30 June 2023
	Municipal buildings: figures	drafted
2.4	Municipal arms, insignia and plate	in draft
2.5	Public preachers	commissioned
2.6	Public monuments	drafted
2.7	Law and order
2.7.1	Courts
2.7.2	Police
2.7.3	Fire services
2.7.4	Prisons
2.7.5	Reformatories
2.7.6	Shropshire Asylum
2.7.7	Copthorne Barracks and other Shrewsbury buildings with a military connection	drafted
2.8	Public services and utilities
2.8.1	Water	partly drafted
2.8.2	Gas	partly drafted
2.8.3	Electricity	partly drafted
2.9	Poor law and poor relief institutions
2.9.1	To 1780	commissioned
2.9.2	From 1780 to 1834	tbc
2.9.3	From 1834	tbc
2.10	Foundling Hospital
2.11	Public parks
2.12	Burial grounds	drafted
2.13	Hospitals and medical services	drafted
2.14	Charities for the poor	drafted
2.15	Almshouses	tbc
3.0	Economic infrastructure and institutions
3.1	Communications
3.2	Markets and fairs	drafted
3.3	Corn mills and Fisheries	drafted
3.4	Mint
3.5	Common lands and the Quarry	drafted
3.6	Craft Guilds
3.7	Industry and employment
4.0	Churches and other religious bodies
4.1	Parish Churches	partly drafted
4.1.1	The early church
4.1.2	Parochial boundaries
4.1.3	St Alkmund	draft updated 8 March 2023
	St Alkmund – Figures	draft updated 8 March 2023
4.1.4	St Chad	drafted
	St Chad – Figures	draft added 30 June 2023
4.1.5	Holy Cross and St Giles	draft updated 8 March 2023
	Holy Cross and St Giles – Figures	draft added 30 June 2023
4.1.6	St Julian	draft updated 30 June 2023
	St Julian – Figures	draft added 30 June 2023
4.1.7	St Mary	draft updated 30 June 2023
	St Mary – Figures	draft added 30 June 2023
4.1.8	All Saints Castlefields
4.1.9	Holy Trinity Coleham
4.1.10	St George Frankwell
4.1.11	St Michael Ditherington
4.1.12	The Holy Spirit, Harlescott	drafted
4.1.13	The reorganization of parishes in the late twentieth century
4.2	Pre-Reformation chapels	drafted
4.3	Roman Catholicism	drafted
4.4	Protestant nonconformity	partly drafted
4.5	Orthodoxy	drafted
4.6	Other faiths	drafted
5.0	Buildings, military and ecclesiastical
5.1	Castle	to be revised
5.2	Town walls gates and bridges	to be revised
5.3	Shrewsbury Abbey and its manor	to be revised
5.4	Sites and Remains of Friaries	tbc
6.0	Town buildings
6.1	Town buildings to 1700	tbc
6.2	Town buildings, 1700-1850	tbc
6.3	Town buildings, 1850-1918	tbc
6.4	Town buildings, 1914-2000	tbc
6.5	Town planning, 1919-2000	tbc
6.6	Conservation and Regeneration, 1918-c.2000	tbc
7.0	Social and cultural institutions
7.1	Education and schools	drafted
7.2	Inns, public houses and hospitality	tbc
7.3	Places of entertainment	to be revised
7.4	The Quarry	drafted
7.5	Learned and cultural societies	to be revised
7.6	Horticultural Society	to be revised
7.7	Museums	to be revised
7.8	Libraries	to be revised
7.9	Newspapers	to be revised
7.10	Shrewsbury Races
7.11	Other sports