Shrewsbury has wonderful medieval and Tudor buildings. My attention was caught at first because I love watching Cadfael, the series from BBC about a medieval monk who lived here in the 11th century. The Cadfael series does a nice job of addressing the issues at the time. There was a civil war between people who supported William the Conquerer's daughter, Maud or Matilda, and people who supported his nephew, Steven, to be king. There were tensions between the Abbey that William the Conquerer set up here to tax the people, and the businesses of the town. The series includes the leper's hospital and the massacre of the people holding the castle for Maud by Steven's people, and other events of the time. It was so nice to read about the same events we've watched in the stories, written about as true history.
The town of Shrewsbury does a great job of providing leaflets for the Cadfael walk and for the buildings of the Tudors, the Victorians, the "the Elegance Period" between. The lady at the tourist office also found us a cozy room with a cat-friendly pub called "The Buck's Head." She called it "the book's head" though, which was really confusing until we figured out she was saying "buck." I think she spelled it for us. :)
They also have some amazing Roman artifacts, including the biggest and shiniest silver mirror (it's about one foot across and very shiny) in Britain.
These are little perfume vials. Approximately 3 inches tall each one.
This is a rather nice bucket.
There was a collapse of some market buildings and some pottery and glass were very amazingly preserved! The pottery comes from southwest France.
Shrewsbury is full of wonderful timbered buildings and cool street names. Here is Drinkwater Street.
The closes here are called "shuts." Same purpose as other places, though. They were yards where several people would live and could be closed off from the main streets at night for safety. Shrewsbury also had the security advantage of being inside the meander of the River Severn, so it almost has a moat all the way around. There's just a little keyhole that needed fortifying (though they did build a wall too eventually). It was settled in about the 7th century.
Some of the old buildings are very bulgy! This practically looks like a mushroom. They did build them out over the street to get more area on the upper floors, but this one surely has bulged over time too. The slants on some walls are quite extreme.
A very yummy lunch with a view of Cadfael's abbey!
This is a fascinating building. I couldn't find anything about it online, but the tourist brochure mentioned that the nifty chimneys are from the 15th century.
The back garden of "Darwin's Town House B & B." Darwin was born here and went to school here, but I am not sure if he actually lived in this house. Nice to imagine he did, though, and had palm trees and that nice back conservatory.
I would love to know why this wall is so much thicker at the bottom! So much history in this town.
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