A World First
I returned home today, but instead of the motorway route I decided to take the A49 and stop off in Shrewsbury. I’ve gone past it many times, but have never been to the town itself.
First stop was the Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings, and it turned out I was just in time for a guided tour. The main mill was constructed at the end of the 18th century, and was the first multi-storey building to have an iron frame. It is thus a precursor of all those textile mills built in Lancashire and Yorkshire and a distant relative of the modern skyscraper. Women and children were employed to spin flax into yarn and thread, it must have been a noisy place. Its use as a flax mill ceased in 1886 and the site was adapted (for example all the windows were bricked up) for the production of malt for the brewing industry in 1897, with a male workforce. This continued (excepting the war years when it accommodated troops) until 1987. Derelict for decades the two biggest buildings on site have been restored by Historic England using monies principally from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
After a longer stop off than I had anticipated I journeyed into the town centre. Plenty to explore, it was more interesting than I had anticipated.
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