2000 years 0f Shropshire History

History Society Report Last Thursday evening

Dorothy Nicolle who is a Blue Badge Tourist Guide, gave the History Society our last talk before the summer recess on '2,000 Years of Shropshire History'.

Starting with the Iron Age hill fort which the Celts built north of Oswestry to the Roman city of Wroxeter, the Norman conquests-1066 and all that-when Ludlow Castle was built, the Black Death in mid 1300's, the Battle of Shrewsbury some 50 years later at which the rebel leader Sir Henry Percy (known as Harry Hotspur) died.

Then onto Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries (from which the nursery rhyme 'the King was in his Counting House'originates), through to the Civil War in the 17th Century and finishing up with the 18th and 19th Centuries' Industrial Revolution during which the now Grade II listed Shrewsbury Railway station had the ground floor entrance hall dug out and built under the original building by those very clever Victorian engineers.

Coincidentally, that same day, Dorothy was featured on local radio talking about the oddities which we often fail to notice such as the Milestone at Craven Arms alongside the A49 and references such as these throughout her talk ensured that the kaleidoscopic spin through time from the Romans through to the Saxons, the Normans and the Industrial Revolution to the original ironman himself, Thomas Telford, a Scot in Shropshire.

But that, as Dorothy said, was another tale for another time.

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