Shrewsbury Becomes 3rd Largest Population Centre in ALL England - History of Shrewsbury Part 10

History of Shrewsbury Part:10 - Shrewsbury Becomes 3rd Largest Population Centre in ALL England and the Ducking Stool!

We hope that you find this instalment of our Shrewsbury History Video Series interesting. You can ether watch it by clicking the embedded video below, or scroll on down and read the story.

Apart from the major set-back of the Black Death (See SoS Part 9), Shrewsbury experienced peace and prosperity for more than a hundred years from the 1280s to the 1380s.

The River Severn was then navigable all the way from Bristol.

After the River Thames, it was the most important inland waterway in England, at a time when roads hardly existed.

Enormous quantities of trade passed up and down the Severn.

By the 1380s, Shrewsbury had recovered from the struggles, and the population had risen back to pre-Black Death levels, to become the third largest centre of population after London and York.

All the main towns built market halls, most of which were in continual use from those days until recent modernisations.

Shrewsbury's first market hall was built in "The Square" in 1260, and stood until 1596 when the present "Old Market Hall", now a cinema, was built.

In front of the Market Hall in the Square there was a pool or bog.

It is said that this pool was called the Bishop's Pool and that it was the ducking pool used for punishment of nagging wives and dishonest traders, from about 1292.

The offender was tied to a chair called the cucking stool or ducking stool, exposed to public derision and then immersed in water.

The women had no equivalent method of punishing bad behaviour in their husbands!

Since 2004, when the council owned Old Market Hall was restored as a cinema and cafe,
the lovely old building has again become a very popular town attraction.

Text based upon The Story of Shrewsbury, by Richard Graves, Hardwick House, Ellesmere 1993 w

https://facebook.com/shrewsburymemories with additions from www.oldmarkethall.co.uk and www.originalshrewsbury.co.uk

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