Shrewsbury

Shrewsbury, town, administrative and historic county of Shropshire, western England. It is the county town (seat) of Shropshire, and its strategic position near the border between England and Wales has made it a town of great importance.

The older, central portion of the town lies on a peninsula within a southward loop of the River Severn. The Welsh princes of Powys made it their seat, called Pengwern in the 5th and 6th centuries. It was subsequently engulfed in the late 8th century by the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia. It had a mint during Edward the Elder’s reign (899–924), and in Domesday Book (1086) it is styled a city. The Norman feudal lord Roger de Montgomery made Shrewsbury his headquarters and founded the abbey. During the next 200 years the county frequently was involved in wars with the Welsh, and Edward I (reigned 1272–1307) entirely rebuilt the castle. In 1403 Henry IV consolidated his throne in the Battle of Shrewsbury. In the late Middle Ages and in Tudor and Elizabethan times the establishment of law and order in the Marches (the politically unstable area along the border), along with the trade in Welsh wool and flax, brought great prosperity.

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The town has many buildings of architectural interest, including 15th- and 16th-century timber-framed houses, the old Market Hall (c. 1596), and a number of Georgian and Regency houses. A considerable length of town wall, including a watch tower, remains. St. Mary’s Church, in early Norman to Perpendicular Gothic styles, contains some remarkable stained and painted glass. In front of the old buildings of Shrewsbury School (1552), now in use as a library and museum, stands a statue of Charles Darwin, who was born in Shrewsbury in 1809.

Shrewsbury’s main industries include malting and the manufacture of rolling stock, machine tools, safes, and electrical equipment. There is a large cattle market. Pop. (2001) 67,126; (2011) 71,715.