Shrewsbury's quaint streets and history

super SHREWSBURY

Head to this Shropshire market town for a delicious, belly-busting tour

There’s a dark passage in Shrewsbury that’s only 22 inches wide; St Mary’s shut. It’s one of a maze of almost 30 such alleys throughout this charming town full of quirkiness and character and a fabulous variety of cuisine.

I mention the food scene because it has been known for people to get stuck in this shut. So, when faced with a bit of a squeeze, I’m very glad that I had forgone the second helping of the appropriately named Lemon Yum in CSONS in Milk Street – despite the powerful cravings. So, beware; there are all manner of gastronomic temptations like this lurking on every corner.

Shrewsbury’s a town where an ostentatious display of wealth hits us as soon as we step off the bus from the campsite near The Square. Spectacular Owen’s Mansion and Ireland’s Mansion each try to outdo the other in all their late sixteenth century show of splendour with, I feel, Owen’s Mansion just having the edge over its near neighbour. This was, after all, the mansion of a man who was so extravagantly rich that he placed wooden statues of his family on its façade for all to see from the market square.

It’s a town of well over 700 listed buildings, including the

Words Helen Werin Photography Robin Weaver

entire street of Wyle Cop. A place which constantly surprises me as I crisscross it through the passages passing between – and sometimes through – buildings and look above store frontages to marvel at ancient architectural features and craftsmanship. Peering more closely at the time-weathered timbers of the fine black and white houses at its Tudor heart, I find the marks which showed builders how MAIN PIC Shrewsbury Castle houses the Soldiers of Shropshire Museum

ABOVE Shrewsbury's colourful indoor market

FAR LEFT Statue of Charles Darwin outside Shrewsbury Library

INSET A reconstruction of a Roman town house, Wroxeter Roman City

BOOK

Portrait of Shrewsbury by Robin Jukes-Hughes and Stan Sedman. Published by Halsgrove W halsgrove.com ISBN 9780857042057

to put them together.

It’s also a town awash with beautiful flowers. They’re everywhere. Baskets full of blooms adorn the bridges and traffic islands. Roundabouts are ablaze with colour. We relax in The Quarry, a 29-acre park in the loop of the River Severn, where the hard-working gardeners are planting stunning seasonal floral displays.

We linger in The Dingle, the delightful formal gardens with lots of seats from which to admire the reflections of all the blossoms in the pond. The Dingle was redesigned by TV’s first ‘celebrity’ green-fingered expert, Percy Thrower, when he was parks superintendent here.

In keeping with so much of Shrewsbury, even the park and garden are Grade II listed. Every August The Quarry is even more dazzling, with more than three million blooms, as it hosts one of the finest and longestrunning flower shows.

CSONS, where locally sourced produce is part of a globally inspired menu, has indulged us with an imaginative and utterly delicious mélange of flavours. My lamb comes from around Brown Clee, the highest hill in Shropshire, and is teamed

WHY?

For a trip packed with interesting things to do, whatever the weather

MUST DO...

Explore all the shuts armed with a leaflet of historical information (£1 from visitor centre)

MUST SEE...

The brilliant Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery in The Square; fascinating – and free

with West Indian curry, lime and coriander. Robin has succulent rare-breed pork belly with porchetta spice, ewes’ cheese and chilli. His ginger cake comes with cider sauce, rhubarb and clotted cream. I must explain that the

‘yum’ is lemon curd, ginger biscuit and chocolate. It’s heaven on a plate. Now you understand my warnings! The restaurant is in one of the streets named after the trades once plied in them; Fish Row, Candle Lane and Butcher Row – you get the picture. So I’m sure that I won’t need to explain what went on in Grope Lane.

Several times when Robin, the photographer, stops to take pictures, a smiling ‘town

ambassador’ appears to impart more information. This welcome also extends to free bicycle rickshaw rides around the centre on weekends, when part of it also becomes traffic-free. The so-proud-of-his-town manager of CSONS tells us about the restaurant’s own ‘secret’, a centuries-old tunnel in the former pub which linked to St Alkmund’s, joking (I think) that the priests could sneak over for a pint.

In the King’s Head you can sup your own pint whilst admiring a magnificent fifteenth century wall painting of The Last Supper, uncovered during renovation work

Shrewsbury’s a town where an ostentatious display of wealth hits us as soon as we step off the bus from the campsite near The Square i What to see and do, ideas for indulgence in TOP The Square and the statue of Clive of in 1987. St Mary’s is another surprise. Inside this deconsecrated Anglican

Shrewsbury’s food scene and India, Shrewsbury church, now used by the events information

W originalshrewsbury.co.uk BELOW community, is the most remarkable Mural on utility box by collection of stained glass. We’re Shrewsbury Prison also offers the Snooty Fox in awed by the vibrancy of the

‘prison break’ and ‘escape room’ Wyle Cop fourteenth century Jesse Window activities as well as guided and (visual representation of Jesus self-guided visits, ghost tours and Christ’s family tree) and the tours of the Georgian tunnels splendid early sixteenth century

W shrewsburyprison.com panels, each telling a story from the life of St Bernard of Clairvaux. For information and opening From the thirteenth century times of Attingham Park

W nationaltrust.org.uk outer walls around Shrewsbury Castle, we can see across to the For information and opening hills and mountains of Wales and times of Wroxeter Roman City towards Lord Hill’s Column, the

W english-heritage.org.uk tallest Doric column in England. The town museum and art gallery Shrewsbury’s award-winning is superb (it’s free and has a indoor market with temptation on popular café, too). every stall. From artisan cheeses, I’m fascinated by the engraved charcuterie, home-cured bacon Roman tombstones and intricately and own-recipe sausages at Cook & Carve delicatessen, to crafted brooch pins from Wroxeter, organically and biodynamically seven miles away. Though grown wine, tea, coffee and modern-day Shropshire does not infusions at Iron & Rose, and contain a single city, that wasn’t cocktails at Tom’s Table. the case a couple of centuries

W shrewsburymarkethall.co.uk ago. Wroxeter (Viroconium) was the fourth-largest city in Roman ››

TOP Walk leaflets are available from the Visitor Information Centre, in TIP Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery, which will guide you to see very different sides of the town, including Shuts and Passages, Georgian Shrewsbury and the Darwin Shrewsbury Trail W shropshiremuseums.org.uk Follow an unusual art trail; there are 14 colourful ‘mini murals’ painted on utility boxes all over town. Youngsters will have fun seeing how many animals they can spot on the trail The park & ride service to Shrewsbury is right outside Oxon Hall and buses run every 20 minutes. Last bus from Shrewsbury at 6.30pm (at time of our visit). Dogs allowed Oxon Hall (and other Morris Leisure parks) offers a discount for all members of the Caravan and Motorhome Club and the Camping and Caravanning Club on production of a valid membership card. Quote your membership number when making a booking Britain and of a similar size to Pompeii. The most immediately striking feature as you approach Wroxeter is that of the 7.5m-high Old Work, part of the civic baths basilica and which has survived since AD 121. Beyond it are remnants of the Romans’ grand leisure complex with its 75m-long exercise hall and hypocaustheated rooms and, unusually for those times, an outdoor pool.

Just as Shrewsbury’s bustling indoor market sells such a diverse range of wares so did Wroxeter’s. Goods came from as far away as North Africa, as befitted a cosmopolitan city where perfume jars, ornate brooches and seal boxes have been found. Much of Wroxeter is still underground, but the extensive ruins that we can see on the surface and the artefacts in Wroxeter’s own museum, are captivating.

We’re able to pack so much into our few days because our pristine campsite, Oxon Hall Touring Park, is in such a great location. It’s right next door to the Oxon Park and Ride, so we can be away from our pitch overlooking the pretty duck pond and dropped in the ABOVE St Chad's Church from The Quarry park, Shrewbsury

CENTRE TOP Attingham Park

CENTRE BOTTOM The Old Work, Wroxeter Roman City centre of Shrewsbury within about 15 minutes.

It’s hard to drag ourselves away from the town itself, but 20 minutes from the site is Attingham Park (National Trust). It’s impossible not to be massively impressed by the Georgian symmetry, the elegant boudoir with its painted oak panels, the exotic Turkish theme of the Sultana Room and the glamorous staircase by famous architect, John Nash (Buckingham Palace, Brighton's Royal Pavilion).

To top all that, there’s the grandiose picture gallery with another of Nash’s special creations – a glazed roof of over 600 panes in gilded oak frames supported by cast iron.

We wander through woodland and around the deer park across the river from the house, spotting some of the fallow deer. Interestingly, it was one of the conditions when Attingham was given to the trust that it should keep the deer in perpetuity.

I’d so love to spend far longer than a few days in Shrewsbury but am aware of the danger that, if I did, I’d soon need far more than a

discreet nudge to get me through St Mary’s shut. The restaurants span a mouth-watering spectrum, from Nepalese to Spanish and Thai, Caribbean to Mexican.

I’ve felt such an easy-going vibe and lack of in-your-face tourism in Shrewsbury, too. It doesn’t drain me as cities or busy places have a tendency to do. Scantily clad dummies of a lingerie shop adorn the windows of the Abbots House (1450), in Butcher Row, yet another of Shrewsbury’s showpieces. Wyle Cop claims to be the longest row of independent shops in the UK. Its sixteenth/ seventeenth century timberframed buildings certainly make it photogenic.

In The Square, FatFace occupies one of the most-photographed listed buildings. Opposite it, you can watch the latest blockbusters under a Tudor-beamed ceiling in the Old Market Hall (1596), now a cinema. Nevertheless there is one very popular tourist attraction that I’m intrigued to visit, Shrewsbury Prison. It operated until 2013 and crimes covered the whole scale of offences, including murder.

Our guide – one of the former prison guards who takes tour parties (you can also go around by yourself) – tells us about some of the innovative attempts to get drugs in via carrier pigeons and dead animals thrown over the walls. In the former morgue, an exhibition about executions is gruesomely compelling. Between 1902 and 1961 seven men were hanged here for murder. In 2020 Sean Bean did Time here, too, the BBC One series that is.

A term behind bars in Shrewsbury Prison? No thank you! Time to investigate more of Shrewsbury’s inviting streets, buildings and museums and to dally in The Dingle? Yes please! Oh, and to sample lots more of Shrewsbury’s delectable cuisine, though perhaps that could be seen as a ‘con’ if you’re trying to watch your weight.

I don’t think that’s much of a defence for not making an escape to Shrewsbury, though.

ABOVE LEFT Take a look inside Shrewsbury prison

TOP RIGHT Luscious lunch at CSONS Restaurant

ABOVE RIGHT Shrewsbury Prison

INSET Fallow deer in Attingham Park

WHERE TO STAY

PRICES COUPLE, ELECTRIC HOOK-UP, PER NIGHT

OXON HALL TOURING PARK Welshpool Road, Shrewsbury SY3 5FB T 01743 340868 W morris-leisure.co.uk/caravanparks/oxon-hall-shrewsbury OPEN All year PRICE From £34.90

ALTERNATIVE SITE BEACONSFIELD HOLIDAY PARK Upper Battlefield, Shrewsbury SY4 4AA T 01939 3210370 W beaconsfieldholidaypark.co.uk OPEN All year PRICE From £30