Diary Dates

Friday 27 September 2013 to Courses The newsletter of the Friends of Archives,

Monday 6 January 2014 ARCHIVES Tuesday 15, 22, 29 October SHROPSHIRE gateway to the and Window shopping on the past and 5 November 2013 An exhibition highlighting the remarkable Historic Gardens of Shropshire photographs of Joseph Lewis Della Porta. See the feature article in this edition for more details. (This is a repeat of the course held in February 2013). Free at Theatre Severn, , with a digital Tutor: Fiona Grant. display in the Old Market Hall, Shrewsbury. 2-4pm at Shropshire Archives. Cost: £32 for 4 sessions. Saturday 12 October 2013 Tuesday 25 February Whitchurch History Day and 4, 11, 18 March 2014 A day to celebrate the heritage of Whitchurch Town and its hinterland. There will be talks, presentations, Shropshire Country Houses music, historic walks and tours. See leaflet for further Tutor: Gareth Williams, Curator & Head of Learning to details and booking form. the Weston Park Foundation. 10am - 4pm Brownlow Community Centre, Claypit 2-4pm at Shropshire Archives. Street, Whitchurch, SY13 1LF. Cost: £5 for members of Cost. £32 for 4 sessions. the Friends; £10 for non-members.

Wednesday 13 November 2013 Forthcoming events Annual Lecture - ‘Time Team Traveller’ Saturday 26 April 2014 Matt Williams, a regular member of Channel 4’s Time Discover Shropshire Day Team programme. 7.30pm Shropshire Archives. Shirehall, Shrewsbury. Cost £4 members of the Friends; £5 for non-members. Details t.b.c.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: The newsletter of the Friends of News Extra... Shropshire Archives is edited by Alison Mussell and designed by Nat Stevenson, Shropshire Archives’ Image Services. Do you have any stories to tell about Window shopping Shropshire’s history or have any news There are three issues per year, paid for by the Friends. The contents are provided by friends and well-wishers. If you would on the past about Shropshire Archives? If you have, like to join the contributors, please contact the editor at the address below. Copy for the next issue needs to be submitted by the editor is waiting to hear from you 15 October 2013. In this issue we feature now. The contact details are below and DISCLAIMER: We have made every effort to ensure that the The rabbit warrens photographs of Shrewsbury shop photographs are always welcome. information in this publication is correct at the time of printing. fronts taken by Joseph Della We cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions. of Shropshire Porta in 1888. Page 2 Page 6 Contact... For further details or to pass on your comments, please contact: Dickin and Co, Ironmongers, 2, Wyle Cop, Shrewsbury Shropshire Archives, Castle Gates, Shrewsbury, SY1 2AQ • Tel: 01743 255350 Email: [email protected] • Website: www.shropshirearchives.org.uk Number 77 . Summer/Autumn 2013 Price £2.00 (free to Members) Mid-seventeenth century map of Sheriffhales showing the warren lodge, rabbits or ‘conies’ and the warren. Shropshire Archives ref. 972/7/1/33

delicacy requiring protection and nurturing. dated 1159 when Henry II (1154-89) granted Feature However, in the post-medieval period the to Roger, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, rabbit was thought of as a useful farming the privilege of free warren, and secondly The rabbit warrens product, sharing areas of permanent pasture a charter of Edward I on 28 January 1307 with sheep and cattle. There are surprisingly granted the right to exercise free warren in few early references to warrens in Shropshire, the manor. This indicates that the warren at with them being recorded at Weston- Prees was a deliberate seigniorial creation, James P. Bowen of Shropshire under-Redcastle in 1274, and and although it is likely that naturally, wild rabbits Shrawardine in 1301. Their presence has been prospered. Moreover, the introduction of more widely observed in forest areas such rabbit warrens by lords can be interpreted abbit warrens were an area set to enjoy the right of free warren on their as Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire and as a response to their failure to enclose aside for the breeding and raising estates, but the word became associated the heathlands of Northamptonshire, Sussex, common land and to convert it to tillage. The of rabbits and are an important specifically with the hunting and keeping Kent, Dorset and the Brecklands of East seventeenth century saw attempts by lords feature of the historic landscape, of rabbits. Warrens frequenty developed Anglia, the higher chalk and limestone areas to obtain direct revenue from wastes, one being a distinctive form of residual on areas of unproductive common of the Yorkshire Wolds and upland areas possible income being the establishment Rland use. Typically they had protected wasteland where light, infertile, sandy- such as Dartmoor and North Yorkshire. and enlargement of warrens. The warren boundaries made up of artificial banks soiled heathland prevailed. Part of lords’ located on Prees Higher Heath was for the and purpose-built accommodation for demesnes, they were an important feature Warrens are widely evident in the rabbits. Often their custodians, namely of the manorial seigniorial economy, being Shropshire landscape. For instance, the Rabbits or their earlier ancestors the warrener(s), lived in a lodge nearby. symbolic of lordship. Also, warrens were prevalence of warrens has been identified Characteristic landscape features of warrens frequently established close to, or within, the on common heathland in north and east ‘coneys’, were introduced to the are what archaeologists and landscape boundaries of medieval deer parks. Shropshire and the uplands of south British Isles from Spain by the historians term ‘pillow mounds’, low mounds Shropshire, corresponding with studies of which have an oblong pillow-like plan. They Rabbits or their earlier ancestors ‘coneys’, comparable landscape types in and Normans in the late twelfth century. are usually about 100 feet long and no more were introduced to the British Isles from Wales. For example, R.W. Eyton (1815-81) in his than 30 feet wide and bounded by ditches. Spain by the Normans in the late twelfth Antiquities of Shropshire (1859) referred to sole use of the lord, although it was later Originally, the word warren referred to century. They provided valuable meat and a series of royal charters which granted the leased. For example, in 1708, Thomas Graham hunting rights to small game. Nobles paid fur. In the medieval period rabbit was a right of free warren in Prees manor; the first paid a half yearly rent of £2 5s for the house,

2 Salopian Recorder . Number 77 . Summer/Autumn 2013 Summer /Autumn 2013 . Number 77 . Salopian Recorder 3 warren and an enclosure. Today, the former location the boundary over an area of common wasteland causing considerable damage. Hence, in 1610 tenants thus corresponding with the spatial pattern nationally. of the warren is marked by the house name ‘Warren called ‘The Hide’ or Burlaughton Common between the of Cold Hatton manor complained that rabbits bred In 1803 Joseph Plymley, the author of the General House’ at the roundabout where the A41 and A49 join manors of Weston-under-Lizard and Sheriffhales close and kept were destroying their fields and furthermore, View of the Agriculture of Shropshire (1803) noted (OS 559, 379). to the Shropshire and Staffordshire border. Documents the warrener was presented for unstopping earths in that the warrens in Longnor Park and Frodesley Park reveal that it was decided that a boundary ditch was the corn fields and for refusing to allow them to be near Cardington had been latterly destroyed. This, he In the medieval and early modern periods, manorial to be dug in order to avoid future disputes. A mid- stopped up again. Rabbits were known to eat holly, outlined, corresponded with the widespread decline courts laid by-laws to prevent the poaching of rabbits. seventeenth century map of Sheriffhales (page 2-3) a valuable source of winter fodder, during periods of the preservation of warrens in ‘private grounds’. As For instance, Myddle manor court sought to prevent of bad weather, as in February 1894. H.E. Forrest one observer remarked: the taking of rabbits, ordering in 1611 that: ‘No Man Rabbits often escaped from warrens and observed that rabbits at Bomere Heath, 4½ miles within this Lordshipp shall keepe any firretts or netts for north of Shrewsbury, were ‘driven by hunger to climb ‘Rabbits have of late been much destroyed, by reason of the the destroying of conyes, the warrener and his servants spread onto neighbouring arable and up into holly hedges and eat the young green twigs’. commons upon which they were bred having been enclosed; exempted.’ A charter for a free warren had been pasture land, causing considerable damage. Similarly, the approvement of common wasteland and in some parts of the county they are seldom to be met acquired by Lord Egerton which allowed him a warren - the conversion and enclosure of common land for with, except in a tame state. If a piece of land suitable to the on ‘Haremeare Heath, Holloway Hills, and the rocky the benefit of landlords whether for arable or pasture, purpose was to be set apart for a warren, it is probable that grounds, (where the plow cannot goe) in those pieces shows field boundaries, the state of cultivation and resulted in negotiation as to the extent of rabbit the profit would be equal to any other mode of husbandry, if called the Hill Leasows, which lye between Holloway Hills, ‘the common in question.’ The agreement followed a farming. For example, when on 19 October 1699, Sir not beyond it.’ and Myddle Hill.’ Elsewhere in north Shropshire such succession of legal disputes heard in the Courts of Robert Corbet wanted to enclose part of Stoke Heath, as at Longden, Cold Hatton and Stoke Heath, manor Star Chamber, Wards, Requests and the local common near , an agreement was reached with Clearly, the importance of rabbits in the rural courts passed by-laws to protect the lords’ privilege. law court: the Assize Court, regarding the casting the freeholders of Stoke upon Tern and Wistanswick economy had declined dramatically, falling victim There was also objection to the establishment of down of enclosures and trespass between 1619 and that he should ‘keep down’ or ‘destroy the said rabbits’ to enclosure and agrarian improvement. They warrens on common wasteland on the basis that it 1626 following the enclosing of ‘The Hide’ for ‘the in exchange for the enclosed parcel. were, nevertheless, extremely important in the infringed those with common rights and because good purpose and benefit of the commonwealth by medieval and early modern economy and, drawing frequently rabbits destroyed crops in nearby fields. the increase of tillage and breeding of conies thereon’. Warrens were also located in upland areas in on cartographic evidence and aerial photography, The right to take rabbits was controversial, a case Shropshire, namely the Long Mynd and Brown Clee, the presence of rabbit warrens in the Shropshire Surviving cartographic evidence held at Shropshire in Quarter Session between the lords of the two and also on Morfe Common, a former royal forest, landscape can still be identified today. n Archives records the location of rabbit warrens. For respective manors sought to clarify the situation. example, an early seventeenth century map of Rudge Heath near by Samuel Parsons, surveyor, Contest and dispute could arise regarding warrens, shows the location of warrens or ‘newe conyberries’ particularly given the incompatibility of rabbit adjacent to the ‘Stony Streate’ (below). In the manor farming and corn production, but also because of of Sheriffhales which, like many of the Weald Moors the status of enclosed land and the access rights manors, was under the lordship of the Leveson claimed. Rabbits often escaped from warrens and Transforming Arts and Museum Services family, in 1667 an agreement was made setting out spread onto neighbouring arable and pasture land, and Building on Success Early seventeenth century map of Rudge Heath by Samuel Parsons, surveyor, showing the ‘Newe conyberries.’ Shropshire Archives ref. 5586/13/4 Arts Council volunteering project

ello, my name is Alison Pritchard and 10 years’ experience of heritage working I would like to introduce myself and as she has been a volunteer at Shrewsbury HEmily Nicklin as Project Manager Museum and also works at the Severn Valley and Volunteer Co-ordinator for the virtual Railway Museum. Emily is also Shrewsbury volunteering element of this Arts Council born and bred and has a degree in funded project. Archaeology and History from the University of Liverpool. To let you have a little background information about ourselves, I have worked We are very excited to be involved with in the public sector for over 25 years, my this new, innovative project which will be last position was with Shropshire Fire and recruiting new “virtual” volunteers to work Rescue Service. I am Shrewsbury born and alongside existing volunteers. We are based bred and have a passion for its local history. at Shropshire Archives and can be contacted I am currently studying for a History Masters on 01743 255377 or by emailing archives@ through the Open University. Emily has shropshire.gov.uk. Please get in touch, we come from the private sector and has almost will be very pleased to hear from you. n

4 Salopian Recorder . Number 77 . Summer/Autumn 2013 Summer/Autumn 2013 . Number 77 . Salopian Recorder 5 Bagnall and Brown, Feature Family Grocers of Window Shopping 1, High Street, Shrewsbury

Alison Mussell on the past

his autumn, Shropshire Joseph (Lewis) Della Porta was Archives will be holding an from a family of shopkeepers. His Texhibition at Theatre Severn father, also called Joseph, was an highlighting the photographs of immigrant from Northern Italy. Joseph Lewis Della Porta. This He settled in Shrewsbury and remarkable set of photographs was in 1857 established a small shop taken in 1888 and records a variety on Princess Street. The business of shops in Shrewsbury. They are prospered and expanded into rich in detail and give us the chance adjoining shops including Lloyds to window shop on the past. We Mansion, the Tudor building can glimpse the stunning displays which stood on the corner of the of foods and products which were Square. The store sold a wide for sale - everything from a tin bath range of goods such as hardware, to a pocket watch, a coracle or a furniture, bedding, china and round of cheese. We can also see boots and shoes. By the time of the shopkeepers, their families and Joseph senior’s death in 1904, it staff and the occasional curious was an established and thriving onlooker who sneaks into shot. department store, especially noted for its Christmas displays. The exhibition will include a selection of images printed from As well as being a partner his original glass negatives, over in the family business, Joseph one hundred of which survive, and (Lewis) Della Porta was also a are kept at Shropshire Archives. keen photographer. Architects’ Della Porta’s photographs are plans show that his new house, some of the most engaging of to be built on the Mount in our 45,000 photograph collection 1892, included a darkroom. The which is being catalogued as part equipment he used would have of the Volunteering for Shropshire’s been cumbersome, the glass plates Heritage Project. are large, approx 8x6 inches, and

Above: details of products for sale in shop windows, 1888

6 Salopian Recorder . Number 77 . Summer/Autumn 2013 Summer/Autumn 2013 . Number 77 . Salopian Recorder 7 the camera would have been nce again his son, William, is an mounted on a tripod. His box of economic Elizabethan house with, From the photographic plates can be seen Oupheavals shake of course, later additions. resting on the pavement in his local government and The oak staircase and Chairman picture of Dick’s Boot and Shoe once again there are panelling with relatively Depot, at 13 Mardol. likely to be impacts on low ceilings give the Shropshire Archives house a homely feeling. These photographs have and its staff. We can The now abandoned John Ravenscroft  prompted many reminiscences of be sure that whatever church in the garden long gone shops and shopping consequences of change is a gem with its wall as the drive takes one a experiences in Shrewsbury. We hit the Archives’ services, paintings and Norman mile and a half through have recorded some of these oral Mary will fight for the features. fields and woods to histories and they will accompany best outcome possible. the house’s secluded this exhibition. Amongst those We wish her and her Stokesay Court is a location with views of included are the recollections of staff well in the coming house of a different the South Shropshire the granddaughter of Mr Dickin months. sort. Larger in scale and hills. The house, designed whose ironmonger’s shop on Wyle 19th century, it has been by Nash in 1803 and set  Cop was one of those captured by On a positive note, through good times and in a Repton designed Della Porta. If you have any material following last summer’s a long period of neglect. landscape, is described relating to small businesses in disappointing, rain The current owner as Tudor Gothic and has Shropshire, or memories you would soaked series of walks, Caroline Magnus made us an amazing, fan vaulted like to record, Shropshire Archives this year’s visits to local welcome and explained ceiling in the hallway and would be pleased to hear from you. country houses were how the making of the some interesting 19th blessed by warm and film ‘Atonement’ in the century stained glass. The exhibition runs from 27 sunny weather. Each visit house had contributed September 2013 to 6 January 2014. was very well attended financially as well On the calendar for  There will also be a digital display in and members were as practically to the the coming months is the the Old Market Hall café. delighted with the tours renovations. Whitchurch day, booked and the glimpses into for Saturday 12 October Top left: John Spedding, Hosier and Draper, 34 Castle Foregate, Shrewsbury. Upton Cressett, Stokesay Longner Hall was a and the annual lecture on Top right: Harry Shaw, Naturalist and Fishing Tackle Manufacturer, 45 High Street, Shrewsbury. Court and Longner Hall. surprise to me, as I had Wednesday 13 November Bottom: Henry James, Wholesale and Retail Provision Dealer, 28 Mardol, Shrewsbury. not been aware of it when the speaker will be Upton Cressett, the despite its proximity to Time Team’s Matt Williams. home of MP Bill Cash Attingham Park. Perhaps Keep a lookout for the and now owned by ‘proximity’ is misleading leaflets for these events. n 

Longner Hall  Upton Cressett 

7 Salopian Recorder . Number 77 . Summer/Autumn 2013 Della Porta’s box of large glass plate negatives resting on the pavement in Longner Hall, designed front of R. and J. Dick, Bootmakers and Dealers, 13 Mardol, Shrewsbury. by Nash in 1803. Cure for Drunkenness!

ictorian inventiveness for tonics and cures never ceases to amaze me. This curious advertisement News Vwas found when cataloguing our MI collection. Its effectiveness and what the active ingredient “discovered by a South American explorer” might have been, we can Oswestry cemetery project break for the mid winter) from October to only imagine. Mary McKenzie March. Please look out for further details. We have appointed Sara Downs to the post In order to accommodate these events the Advertisement for Edwards’ Iguazu bitters, of Archivist/Project Manager on the Heritage search room will be closed from 5pm on “A Guaranteed Cure for Drunkenness discovered by a South American Above: photograph of Lottery funded Oswestry cemetery project. these occasions. Explorer” - late 19th Century. Shropshire Archives ref: MI1769/2 the chapel at Oswestry Other project staff are being recruited as the from the archives of Recorder goes to press. The 18 month project Helen Foster and Laura Matthews Oswestry Town Council. will work on the cataloguing, conservation and digitization of the records of Oswestry In July we said goodbye to Helen Foster New accessions cemetery dating back to 1862. It will also who had worked for the service in a range create a photographic record of the surviving of public service and cataloguing roles over • Minutes of Salop Health Authority and predecessors, 1899-1986, including Bridgnorth & South Shropshire gravestones, transcribe the information the last 6 years. Helen worked very skilfully Infirmary and Lady Forester Hospitals ( & ) 1899-1948; register of inspections of on them, and research the lives of those as a member of the public service team, and district nurses, 1920-50 (8659) recorded to create an online resource. For demonstrated her excellent customer service further details or if you are interested in skills on many occasions. She also worked • Accounts and registers of the Eye, Ear & Throat Hospital for Shropshire & Wales, Shrewsbury, 1819-1990s volunteering to help support the project, on a number of cataloguing projects, most (8662); reports (8680) please contact [email protected]. recently getting to grips with the Fordhall • Maps of Wombridge estate, 1803 (8671); Dodmore estate, 1835 (8672) Farm 20th century business archive whose Arts Council Virtual Volunteering project complicated financial records were certainly • Ellesmere parish poor law documents, 1718-1787 (8674) a challenge! Helen’s helpfulness and support • Methodist church records, 1940s-2000s (8685) The Arts Council Virtual Volunteering project for the rest of the team will be sorely missed. has now started work, see the article on page We hope Helen enjoys her move to Sheffield Sale catalogue of licensed houses in Shropshire & North Wales, 1927 (8691) • 5 of the Recorder for further details. and finds an interesting and rewarding role • Hardwick estate account book, 1845-1847 (8692) for her many skills there. Thursday evening workshops • Maesbury school records, 1872-2011 (8693) Laura Matthews, who has worked as an • Arts Festival minutes and programmes, 1988-2013 (8694) Following the success of the Thursday apprentice for Shropshire Archives and evening workshops which started in April, the Records Management service, will be we are planning to extend these (with a finishing her contract with us in the middle of August. Laura has been a very valuable New books Please send any comments on these or any other areas to: member of staff in her time with us. She Mary McKenzie, Team Manager, Archives, Shropshire Archives, has showed her hard work and flexibility • Thorne, Thomas Pancakes and prangs: 20th century military aircraft accidents in Shropshire Castle Gates, Shrewsbury, SY1 2AQ in willingly taking on a range of tasks from sorting large quantities of Shropshire Council • Simcock, Francis The Lyndford Trilogy – a saga of Shropshire and the Welsh marches tel: 01743 255350 email: [email protected] records in difficult working conditions, to • Cavell, Emma Kinship, locality, and benefaction; the Uppington heiresses and the Priory of website: www.shropshirearchives.org.uk working on reprographics and helping out Wombridge in thirteenth-century Shropshire with the public service by producing archives for our customers. We wish Laura all the very • Williams, Derek Williams the Llawnt; Robert Williams: a neglected Celtic scholar best with her studies at Wolverhampton • White, Gaffney & Gaffney Wroxeter, the Cornovii and the urban process vol 2 University where she plans to study history. n • Duckers, Peter Soldiers of Shropshire

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