S hrewsbury, the county town of Shropshire, sits on a tight meander of the River Severn. It would be difficult to design a better defensive site and the Normans built a castle here. This red sandstone structure was built on the narrowest part of the meander and the remains of it overlook the railway station. Also established in the eleventh century was a Benedictine Abbey.
The medieval town occupied the area of land within the meander. Situated as it is, just 15 km from Wales, Shrewsbury’s development owed much to the Welsh wool trade. The town has always been a commercial centre not just for Shropshire but also for central Wales. By the eighteenth century it had become an important market town and a stopover for stagecoaches travelling between London and Holyhead, for people travelling to Ireland.
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