Whitchurch, Shropshire
Whitchurch is a market town in the civil parish of Whitchurch Urban, in north of Shropshire, England. It lies east of the Welsh border, 2 miles south of the Cheshire border, north of the county town of Shrewsbury, south of Chester, and east of Wrexham. At the 2021 census, the population of the Whitchurch Urban parish was 10,141, and the population of the Whitchurch built up area was 9,855. Whitchurch is the oldest continuously inhabited town in Shropshire. Notable people who have lived in Whitchurch include the composer Sir Edward German, and illustrator Randolph Caldecott.
History
Early times
There is evidence from various discovered artefacts that people lived in this area about 3,000 BC. Flakes of flint from the Neolithic era were found in nearby Dearnford Farm.Roman times
Originally a settlement founded by the Romans about AD 52–70 called Mediolanum, it stood on a major Roman road between Chester and Wroxeter. It was listed on the Antonine Itinerary but is not the Mediolanum of Ptolemy's Geography, which was in central Wales. Local Roman artefacts can be seen at the Whitchurch Heritage Centre.In 2016, archaeologists discovered the remains of a Roman wooden trackway, a number of structural timbers, a large amount of Roman pottery and fifteen leather shoes during work on a culvert in Whitchurch. In 2018, a collection of 37 small Roman coins was unearthed at Hollyhurst near Whitchurch. The small denomination, brass or copper alloy coins, known as Dupondii and Asses, were from the reign of the Emperor Trajan, AD 98–117. Some dated back to between AD 69–79 from the time of Emperor Vespasian.
Anglo-Saxon times
Certain sources suggest that St. Alkmund, the son of Alhred, King of Northumbria was first buried in Whitchurch; he was certainly first buried in Shropshire.It has been suggested that Whitchurch is Weardbyrig, which is the site of a Saxon Burh of Æthelflæd, daughter of Alfred the Great Lady of the Mercians which would have been operational in the early 900s CE.
Norman and Medieval
In 1066, Whitchurch was called Westune, probably for its location on the western edge of Shropshire, bordering the north Welsh Marches. Before the Norman conquest of England, the area had been held by Harold Godwinson. After the conquest, Whitchurch's location on the marches would require the Lords of Whitchurch to engage in military activity.By the time it was recorded in the Domesday Book, Whitchurch was held by William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, and Roger de Montgomery. It was part of the hundred of Hodnet. There was a castle at Whitchurch, possibly built by the same Earl of Surrey, which would predate the birth of Ralph. The Domesday Book estimates that the property was worth £10 annually, having been worth £8 in the reign of Edward the Confessor.
The surrounding hamlets became townships and Dodtune is now fully integrated into Whitchurch as Dodington. The first church was built on the hill in AD 912. After the Norman Conquest a motte and bailey castle and a new white Grinshill stone church were built. Westune became Album Monasterium. The name Whitchurch is from the Middle English for "White Church", referring to a church constructed of white stone in the Norman period. The area was also known as Album Monasterium and Blancminster, and the Warennes of Whitchurch were often surnamed de Albo Monasterio in contemporary writings. It is supposed that the church was built by William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey.
During the reign of Henry I in the 12th century, Whitchurch was in the North Division of Bradford Hundred which by the 1820s was referred to as North Bradford Hundred. William fitz Ranulf is the earliest individual of the Warenne family recorded as the Lord of Whitchurch, Shropshire, first appearing in the Shropshire Pipe Roll of 1176. In 1859, Robert Eyton considered it likely that Ralph, son of William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey, was the father of William and that he first held that title. However, other theories have been put forward.
In 1377 the Whitchurch estates passed to the Talbot family. It was sold by the Talbots to Thomas Egerton, from whom it passed to the earls of Bridgwater and eventually to Earl Brownlow.
After the Battle of Shrewsbury, the body of Hotspur was taken by Thomas Neville, 5th Baron Furnivall, to Whitchurch for burial. However, when rumours circulated that Percy was still alive, the king "had the corpse exhumed and displayed it, propped upright between two millstones, in the market place at Shrewsbury".
The town was granted market status in the 14th century.
Eighteenth century onwards
In the 18th Century many of the earlier timber-framed buildings were refaced in the more fashionable brick. New elegant Georgian houses were built at the southern end of the High Street and in Dodington.The replacement third church collapsed in July 1711 and the present Queen Anne parish church of St Alkmund was immediately constructed to take its place. It was consecrated in 1713.
As dairy farming became more profitable Whitchurch developed as a centre for Cheshire cheese production. Cheese fairs were held on every third Wednesday when farm cheeses were brought into town for sale. Cheese and other goods could be easily transported to wider markets when the Whitchurch Arm of Thomas Telford's Llangollen Canal was opened in 1811. The railway station was opened in 1858 on the first railway line in North Shropshire, running from Crewe to Shrewsbury.
During the Second World War a secret Y station for enemy signals interception operated in Whitchurch at the Old Rectory in Claypit Street, run by the Foreign Office.
On 23 November 1981, an F1/T2 tornado passed through Whitchurch as part of the record-breaking nationwide tornado outbreak on that day. The Whitchurch tornado was the longest-lived tornado of the entire outbreak, having first touched down 35 miles away in the south Shropshire village of Norbury. After passing through Whitchurch, the tornado dissipated.
Governance
There are two tiers of local government covering Whitchurch, at parish and unitary authority level: Whitchurch Town Council and Shropshire Council. Since 2024, the town council has been based at a temporary town hall and community hub in the former police station at 2 Station Road, after structural problems were identified at Whitchurch Civic Centre.The town is located within the North Shropshire parliamentary constituency.
Administrative history
Whitchurch was an ancient parish, which straddled the North Bradford hundred of Shropshire and the Nantwich hundred of Cheshire. The parish was subdivided into fourteen townships, being Alkington, Ash Magna, Ash Parva, Black Park, Broughall, Dodington, Edgeley, Hinton, Hollyhurst and Chinnel, New Woodhouse, Old Woodhouse, Tilstock, Wirswall, and a Whitchurch township covering the town itself. The Wirswall township was in Cheshire; the rest of the parish was in Shropshire. From the 17th century onwards, parishes were gradually given various civil functions under the poor laws, in addition to their original ecclesiastical functions. In some cases, the civil functions were exercised by subdivisions of the parish rather than the parish as a whole. In the case of Whitchurch, the parish was split into two parts for administering the poor laws: the Cheshire township of Wirswall, and the rest of the parish in Shropshire. In 1866, the legal definition of 'parish' was changed to be the areas used for administering the poor laws, and so Wirswall and Whitchurch became separate civil parishes.In 1860, a local government district called Whitchurch and Dodington was created covering those two townships, administered by an elected local board. Under the Local Government Act 1894, such districts were reconstituted as urban districts. Shortly afterwards, in January 1895, the name of the urban district was changed from Whitchurch and Dodington to Whitchurch. The 1894 act also directed that civil parishes could no longer straddle district boundaries, and so the parish of Whitchurch was split into a Whitchurch Urban parish matching the urban district and a Whitchurch Rural parish outside the urban district. At the 1891 census the civil parish had a population of 6,647.
Whitchurch Urban District was abolished in 1967, when its area was redesignated as a rural parish and placed in the new North Shropshire Rural District. The rural district was replaced by the larger North Shropshire district in 1974. That district was in turn abolished in 2009. Shropshire County Council then took over district-level functions, making it a unitary authority, and was renamed Shropshire Council. The civil parish covering the town is still officially called Whitchurch Urban, but its parish council omits the 'urban' from its name, calling itself Whitchurch Town Council.
Landmarks
Buildings
There are currently over 100 listed buildings in Whitchurch, including the churches detailed in the religion section lower down.St Alkmund's Church is a prominent landmark in the town and a Grade I listed building. Other notable landmarks include the former almhouses founded by Samuel Higginson and the former girls' school founded by Jane Higginson and the old Whitchurch Grammar School which was founded in 1548. The grammar school building dates from 1708 and was latterly used as an infants' school. Further buildings were added in 1848 and 1926. All have now been converted into flats.
Two of the oldest buildings in Whitchurch include the Old Eagles pub built in the 16th century and 17, 19 and 21 Watergate Street, otherwise known as Raven Yard Antiques. The properties 17, 19 and 21 Watergate were first built in 1625 and were called the Raven's Inn. Over the last four centuries, the Raven's Inn has seen a great deal of alteration but more recently has seen a significant part of the property restored to its original half timbered facade. 17-19 Watergate exists as a private property and 21 Watergate is now called Raven Yard Antiques, a family owned antiques business with a speciality in Victorian military uniforms.