The Shrewsbury Flower Show

An important event in the town’s annual calendar - the most important event, some might say – is the good ol’ Shrewsbury Carnation & Gooseberry Show, as it used to be called back in 1836 when the first Show was held in the Frankwell area of town. 

In 1857, the 'gooseberries and carnations' bit was dropped and the Show became known as ‘The Flower Show’.  It was held in a marquee in the town centre and by 1874 was making a profit of one shilling and ten pence [about 10p today].  In 1881, the entertainment is recorded as including Bon Bon the tightrope walker with his 150ft long tightrope, standing at 40 feet above the ground.

The Flower Show continued yearly until the First World War.  Its revival in 1920 was attended by people from across the UK.  By the Second World War, it was being held in the Quarry, Shrewsbury’s main park. Except for the years when the Quarry was dug over for allotments as part of Shrewsbury’s war effort, it’s been there ever since. 

And now here we are again – August, and it’s Flower Show time. All the usual pageantry of military band and Mayor and entourage has taken place, and down at the Quarry gates, people are jostling to get in to the strains of a steel band playing ‘You Are My Sunshine’. 

There’s a sameness about the Flower Show. Same marquees, same trophies, same sorts of events, same showground, same time of year, heralding the end of summer with the evenings closing in and the skies dark enough for fireworks by 9.45pm.  But I wouldn’t have it any other way. One of the biggest events of its type in the UK - until recently its longest-running - Shrewsbury’s Flower Show is an institution. 

It’s also a great place for meeting people. Before I’m even through the gates I bump into Karen Higgins of The Big Busk.  Then, inside the Showground, the first person I meet is Bill Morris, who used to be a Town Councillor, and is the person who first told me about the Shrewsbury Fragment [something I’ve yet to write about but, believe me, you’ll be fascinated when I do]. 

Then the next person I meet is Helen Ball, Town Clerk, in a big pink flowery hat that looks very fetching.  Then down the central avenue of the Quarry, amongst its cheek-by-jowl stalls and hospitality suites, I find my old friend, the artist Penny Timmis, and some of her paintings.

We stop to chat in the Brewin Dolphin hospitality suite, where the paintings are hanging, then I leave Penny holding court and head down to the river. Here I find that railway tracks have been lain, and the oldest still working narrow-gauge steam engine is huffing up and down.  There’s a real mix of stuff down here - fluffy toys, garden furniture, a distant voice attempting to sell the Light n’ Easy Eco Deluxe Steam Mop [‘I’ll be honest with you,’ the sales patter goes], even a stall promoting Orthotic Works, whatever they might be, and another one selling Gnu Airers. What are they?

When I get hungry [which hasn't happened yet]  there are stalls selling everything from carvery and grill to a mountain of meringues. In the Food Marquee, a TV chef is demonstrating how to cook before a capacity audience, but I  don’t stay, lured away by the irresistible sound of a male voice choir performing Men of Harlech on the bandstand outside.

By the bandstand I meet my Welsh friend, Dai, who’s no mean singer himself.  Then I’m off again, heading for the main marquees, which are what  the Show is all about.  In the first of them I encounter the smoothest potatoes I’ve ever seen in my life, followed by the biggest onions and carrots so exquisitely tapered that it’s hard to believe they haven’t been sculpted.  These are  competition-class vegetables.

And these are the trophies waiting to be won.

I walk past cabbages that look like green elephants with waggling ears, cauliflowers with white hearts as big as dining-plates and gooseberries as big as apples, I swear [well, maybe crabapples].

After them I find rows of flowers, and fruit & vegetables, arranged in displays.

 Some of the marquees celebrate what local gardeners and gardening clubs have produced, others showcase what the market leaders in the horticultural industry have to show.  Between the marquees I find a series of small gardens, my favourite being this one by the Dingle Nurseries near Welshpool.  

I come across a scarecrow competition, where the best man, most definitely I reckon, has won. 

Then, back inside again, I find banks of feathery grasses...

...a riot of sarracenias [a fancy word for carnivorous plants]...

...and a display of different types of  bougainvillea.  People go on about the Dingle in the Quarry being a riot of colour, but this riot of softer, more subtle hues is more my cup of tea.

 The day wends on.  I stop to watch a falcon settle on a man’s wrist. I linger by the showground where white-helmeted motorbike riders have recently come off.  It’s show-jumping time. Riders on twitchy horses are limbering up, awaiting their turns. ‘It’s Tim Davies on Salome II,’ a voice announces over the sound system, to be greeted by a smattering of polite applause.  ‘Smack on the time,' I hear as I walk away.  'That’s a clean round…. Tim Davies on Salome II… leading by five seconds ex-act-ly…’ 

In the evening, I’m back again.  Bellowhead’s playing, and the arena is divided in two.  Either you’re sitting beneath your blanket behind the arena's outer rim looking as if the cold is getting to you, or you’re on the hallowed turf, bobbing up and down, waving your arms in the air as the bass goes through you, connecting you to everybody else.

Bellowhead’s an eleven-piece outfit of electric-folk musicians belting out traditional tunes and numbers of their own with a mix of fiddles, big-band brass and lots of attitude.  Definitely the best fun’s to be had right in front of the stage within breathing distance of the band.  These boys and girls certainly know how to work a crowd.

Eventually they’re gone, however, and people move back behind the barriers. The sky darkens, the spotlights come on and the marching band reappears, creating a sea of red and gold against the green of the turf.   It plays all the old numbers that come out every year, and people are instantly out of their seats, on their feet and singing along. 'Land of Hope And Glory'. 'Jerusalem'. 'Rule Britannia'.  'Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau' [Land of My Father’s to anyone non-Welsh -  I love it that at this Flower Show, here in the Northern Marches between England and Wales, we respect the Welsh Anthem as well as the English one]. 

And then here it comes, of course, 'God Save The Queen', after which it’s time for the bands to march away - and for the fireworks to begin.

What can I say about the fireworks?  Even more than the Flower Show, they’re a Shrewsbury institution.  Never mind the 50,000 people who over two days will be watching from inside the Show – on the bridges, in pub gardens all over town, on the far shore of the River Severn, and up on Beck’s Field with its view of fireworks reflected in the water [and of smoke drifting away between the trees], it’s party time.   

Everybody in Shrewsbury loves the two nights of the Flower Show when the Reverend Ron Lancaster’s Kimbolton Fireworks [they of London’s New Year celebrations and many of our royal pageants] illuminate our town.  For a moment in time we’re all lit up, faces raised before a night sky full of exploding stars - little kids again, gasping and wowing as the band plays Holst’s Planets [Mars, I think], Bizet’s Carmen, the William Tell Overture and Porgy and Bess, fireworks going off in time to them, carefully choreographed, bang, bang, bang.   

Then it’s darkness again. For fifteen dazzling minutes we’ve been drawn together by a bit of magic, courtesy of gunpowder and fire.  Now we draw apart again, heading for the exits, the Flower Show over for another year. At the main gate, a lone piper pipes us out to Scotland the Brave. The man at the gate says, ‘Thank you,’ and ‘Goodnight’ to everyone passing him by, as if each us had been his own personal guest. A typical Shrewsbury touch, that.

At the bottom of Claremont Bank, a fleet of Park & Ride buses are waiting to carry people away. You’d never think so many people could just disappear, but they do. Like the smoke between the trees they’re suddenly gone, and then Shrewsbury falls quiet, nothing left but to clear up those abandoned marquees.  

OPEN STUDIO: Nathalie Hildegarde Liege

 'If I talk to you I may break everything. But that's not my fault; I can be very very sorry afterwards. But a break in a piece of glass can never be hidden.' 

Louise Bourgeois, 1911-2011 

This is the quote that leapt out at me from Couleurlive.com, the website of artist Nathalie Hildegarde Liege. Then, when I start browsing through the site I read this from Henry Moore:  'It is a mistake for a sculptor or painter to speak or write very often about his job.  It releases tensions needed for his work.' 

Oh dear. I arrive at the English Bridge Workshops wondering if I’m going to be personally responsible for destroying a work of art by forcing Nathalie to talk about it.  Or maybe I’ll find Nathalie unwilling to talk to me at all.

The English Bridge Workshops are situated in a large Victorian building just over the bridge on what’s known locally as the English Bridge gyratory. The building used to be a school, but now it houses a collection of artists’ studios, including those for a sculptor, a jewellery-maker and a couple of illustrators. Nathalie has space in it for firing glass, and a large airy studio that’s full of her work.   She’s primarily known for her stained-glass, but she sees herself as a fine artist in the widest sense. Her walls are full of paintings, prints and sketches, and every available work surface is covered in sculpted pieces using mixed media, including glass.

Nathalie is a tall woman with sharp eyes behind her specs and a long dark plait.  Today she has a flower tucked into her hair.  Her accent pins her down as French, but her English is very good and, despite my misgivings, I find her very open.  No problem about being prepared to talk. Nathalie claims to not be naturally talkative, especially about her work, but sharing is obviously very important to her.

Nathalie grew up in the suburbs of south-east Paris, the daughter of a computer analyst father and seamstress mother, whose greatest claim to fame was that she made the wedding dress for a Russian princess, the bride of Prince Michel Magaloff, married in the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Paris.  ‘I regret that I don’t remember it,’ Nathalie says.  ‘I was a baby in the womb when that dress was being made, and only a few months old when the wedding took place.’

After school, Nathalie chose to study Fine Art at the Sorbonne where the concept of plastic art was stretched to include studies in poetry, theology, psychology and ethnology. Afterwards she worked for a while in the Pompidou Centre, where she was influenced by the work of Louise Bourgeois, which she saw at close hand on a daily basis.  ‘There was something in it,’ she says.  ‘Half-serious, half-naughty.  Something very French.’

Nathalie was very interested in the thinking of Joseph Beuys, in the ideas behind social sculpture and in Andrei Tarkovsky's concept of sculpting in time. The Sainte-Chapelle and Chartres cathedral windows unfolded for her a love of light and glass. 

Nathalie came to the UK in 1995. In France she was confronted with two completely separate worlds functioning side by side, very much in the Renaissance tradition. In the UK, however, the roles of stained-glass designers and manufacturers were brought together, so that designers were trained to get their hands on all the techniques involved in making their own glass - and this was what Nathalie wanted. 

Initially Nathalie attended the Swansea Institute, but left after the first year, disappointed that the teachers who had interviewed her weren't there on her course. The final straw came when her neighbour was stabbed.   'I had to rescue him from a bath of blood at four in the morning,' Nathalie said. 'It was another reason for wanting to leave. I moved to Wrexham University, where I was much happier.' 

Nathalie graduated in 1998 and received the Worshipful Company of Glaziers and Painters of Glass Journeyman’s Award for 1998-2000, which was a great honour  Her first workshop was in Ironbridge, then she moved to the English Bridge Workshop, where she’s been working ever since.

In recent years, Nathalie has produced stained-glass for private commissions as well as public and worship sites at Gobowen Hospital,  Shrewsbury Cyber Café, Bryn Offa School and St Luke’s Church, Grimethorpe. Last time I visited the English Bridge Workshop, it was the St Luke’s project that was being worked on.  Now Nathalie’s working on windows for St James’s, Ryhill in Yorkshire, in memory of parishioner June Mary Cooper, based on the theme of Our Lady of Walsingham – whose 950^th anniversary, by a happy coincidence, was celebrated the year the windows were commissioned. At the same time, Nathalie is working on a series of small Icons, having been introduced to the medieval art of icon painting [‘I love the freedom that egg tempera brings’] by the icon artist, Aidan Hart.

Nathalie says that her work has changed greatly in recent years.  Concurrent with her stained-glass projects she’s working on a series of fine art pieces whose source are the words Enter into the rocks and hide in the earth, taken from the Bible - Isaiah 2 v.10. For some years Nathalie has had a battle with a type of cancer, lymphoma, of which she is now clear, but which has changed her perspective. ‘Before, my work was very different,’ she says.  ‘I was searching for something, but I couldn’t draw together all the strands that would make it one whole.  I finally became a Greek Orthodox Christian in the year 2000. This was the result of a long journey, starting at the age of ten, moving from a position of atheism to one of belief.

Many of Nathalie’s images involve recycled or reused items – survey maps, threads of wool, letters on wood, items that otherwise might have been thrown away. Nathalie is using them, she says, to develop ideas that have been going through her mind for a long time. She describes herself as a slow burner, things going on inside which will eventually emerge, like a lid being lifted on a boiling pot. The life of the spirit, her spiritual life, is of prime importance in choosing ideas for her to develop into pieces of art.  ‘We’re called to be humble towards things, but so often we’re far from humble towards nature and what is given to us.  This is something that I want to get across,’ she says. 

Nathalie sees her work as a form of story-telling.  Before the lymphoma, she says, her focus was different.  Now, however, the narrative drive of her work, in her own words, ‘just keeps going, keeps going.’  There are so many stories to tell, she says.

Nathalie’s second name, Hildegarde, is her Orthodox name. Becoming part of the Orthodox Church has plainly been a huge thing in her life.  She grew up typically French, she says, baptized as a baby but unlikely to enter church again except for her wedding day.  This non-activity to the point of unbelief, she feels, impacted on the way she worked, tied to deadlines, a slave to the notion of slogging it out.  Now, however, she is far more flexible. When she feels that something is happening that shouldn’t be lost, she will say ‘no’ to whatever gets in its way. Before, she used to say ‘yes’ when she should have said ‘no’, but nowadays she’s more finely tuned to the life of the spirit working within herself for others.  She feels that what she’s learning, and is able to create out of what life has imposed on her, shouldn’t be kept only for herself.  ‘Why not share more?’ she asks. 

Together we walk around the studio.  Although there are real differences in the works of art on display, repeating images begin to appear. I stop before one image, a head drowning in a sea of grass.  Nathalie is talking to me about the cancer and about her experiences at that difficult time. Her mother had a life threatening incurable illness too, and was slowly dying. Though miles away from each other, time had something to say to each of them and this experience enabled Nathalie to bring together the different sides of herself - artist, storyteller and seeker for a spiritual resolution. What happened to Nathalie over this period of years she describes as ‘an evolution in who I am’.

Many of Nathalie’s pieces speak of silence, everything stripped bare except the layers of self, one inside the other, interconnected mutely, as she puts it, by ‘the mystery of who we are’.  A sense of change runs through her pieces, a sense of what we, here on our earth, can hope to aspire to, and what change can do to us, ‘as bitter sometimes,’ Nathalie says, ‘as it is sweet.’ There’s a fascinating mix of control and lack of it in some pieces. Nathalie smiles when I point this out. ‘But then that’s life,’ she says with a half-shrug.

In recent years, Nathalie has been writing too. Poetry was part of her training at the Sorbonne.  She describes this period as ‘two years of smoke-filled rooms; an intense introduction to poetry.’  She’s been writing ever since, but more so since she started thinking about storytelling in new forms, and wanting to share more.  Her writing to begin with was personal, not for publication. It took Shrewsbury poet, Liz Lefroy, to dig it out of her, she says.  Since then she has gathered her poems together and given them more recognition.

Nathalie writes in French and translates into English.  As well as poetry, she writes occasional pieces of fiction. On the back burner she has ideas for a series of small illustrated books, inspired by her interest in the ways we talk to children about illness.  This perspective comes from being ill herself, and from losing her mother at the same time, experiencing everything stripped away except the child inside.  ‘I started listening to that child,’ Nathalie says. ‘She returned to me when I was ill.  What I’ve written is born of great challenges, and it’s something I very much want to share.’

In one piece of writing, ‘Grow and Hop’, Nathalie speaks about illness as an invader who’s found a kingdom to live in, using the image of a rogue seed implanted between the bricks of an old wall. Her story gives a separate voice to the child, a voice lodged in the child’s heart, speaking words of truth in clear, simple language while the adults in his or her life speak mysteries in long words to do with chemotherapy and drugs regimes.  Mummy loves you, the voice inside translates.  You are her little darling. These are the words the child needs to hear.

I like the way Nathalie puts things.  To me it harks back to what she said about Louise Bourgeois – half-serious, half-naughty, very French. ‘Days are ongoing creations,’ she says. That’s worth thinking about.  And worth thinking about too is what she means when, talking about presenting herself as an artist, she says that before and beyond anything else, she’s Nathalie Hildegarde, touche-à-tout – a manifold being.  

I also like Nathalie’s work. Take a look for yourselves, and see what you think. ‘Art can slay you,’ Nathalie says, ‘if you only open your eyes.  ‘Look, look. Slow down, people.  Pause and look.’

To read one of Nathalie’s short, short stories, go to the Flash Fiction Shrewsbury website 

Nathalie's Facebook Page 

Nathalie's website, Couleurlive  

Britannia of Blome & Britain in Bloom

How about this as a description of Shrewsbury:

“The Severn is navigabale to Schrosbery, I passed it over a large stone ridge.  At the entrance there is a suburb, the church of which appears to me to have formerly belonged to some fine abbey.  

I ascended from thence to the town ; which is mounted on the platform of a rock, scarped on almost every side, which renders its situation naturally strong.  Besides which, the wall that encloses it made it difficult to be scaled.  

The environs consist of large woods, and high mountains.  Nevertheless, the town is filled with people and rich shopkeepers, who dwell in two large streets, one leading to the market-place, and the other turning from this place towards the left.  Near which are the Great Church, the Exchange and Town-hall.  

They are in a street called Aystrit, which is so broad, that it seems a long market-place, terminating at one of the ends of the town, where stands the Castle and commands it ; being more elevated and by so much the stronger, as it is environed on one side by broad ditches, closed with good walls, and on the other there is no approach to it, on account of the steepness of the rock. But it has been ruined by the late wars, insomuch that, excepting a few towers, and some lodgings within, I see nothing remarkable.”

This piece of seventeenth century travel writing was published in Paris in 1672, recounting the travels of a certain Monsieur Jorevin de Rocheford.  Also included are details of Shrewsbury funeral ceremonies that I’ll share with you another time. The painting above provides an idea of the view that M de Rocheford would have encountered as he approached Shrewsbury, and so would the writer of this account, also written in the seventeenth century.

 “For largeness [numbring five parish churches, besides a chapel ; two of which, St Marie’s and St. Alckmond’s, are fair structures, and beautified with lofty spires,] neatness of buildings, both publick and private, largeness and variety of streets, and populousness, [the town] may be ranged in the number of cities of the first rank.

“It is a town of good strength, as well by nature as by art ; being fenced about with a strong wall ; besides another bulwark ranging from the Castle unto, and in part along, the Severn ; through which there are here entrances into the town: on the East and West, by two fair stone bridges, with gates, towers, and barrs : and on the North by a strong gate, over which is mounted the said Castle, once exceedingly strong.

“It is a place of a great resort, and well inhabited both by the English and the Welsh, who speak both speeches: and enjoyeth a great trade for cloths, cottons, frizes and a variety of other commoditie s: this being the common mart between England and Middle Wales.”

Both these accounts I've taken out of The History of Shrewsbury, Volume I, written by H. Own and J.B. Blakeway, published in 1825 – which I bought in first edition only the other day from the completely wonderful Candle Lane Books, which I shall be writing more about later in the year. The second account was lifted by them from the ‘Britannia of Blome’, which struck me as being of passing interest as today is Britain in Bloom finals Day, with the town of Shrewsbury full of similar jollifications to the ones I described recently for the Regional Finals.

The names may be similar, however, but the similarity ends as soon as it begins. Britannia of Blome is a “geographical description of the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, with the isles and territories thereto belonging : and ... an alphabetical table of the names, titles, and seats of the nobility and gentry ... Illustrated with a map of each county of England and Wales, enobled with illustrations… the like never before seen”.

Richard Blome was active as a map and bookseller in latter part of seventeenth century.  The Britannia was his principle work, though it was described by some as plagiarism, and said to include poorly drawn and sketch maps. 

I have to say these maps don’t look sketchy to me.  Above is one of Shropshire, and I love this one of London.  And, while we're on the subject of engravings, below is one from the Owen & Blakeway History - a lovely stormy view, appropriate to some of the weather we've been having recently, drawn by J.C. Buckley in 1823:

One final word on the subject of the painting of Shrewsbury with which I began this post.  It was donated to Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery in December 2009 and will be one of the treasures on show in the new Museum.  It dates back to around 1630, and is the third oldest known image of the town.

Coincidentally, it turns out that a previous owner of the painting was the same Reverend John Brickdale Blakeway [vicar of St Mary’s from 1794 until his death in 1826], who co-wrote the History of Shrewsbury. In that History, mention is made of the additional storey on the tower of the Abbey Church, which was depicted ‘in an old painting of a view of Shrewsbury’.  As the Blakeway painting - which is believed to have hung in The Council House, which is where Blakeway lived and died - is the only known view of the town showing this feature, it’s more than likely that this is the 'old painting' mentioned in the book.  

How wonderful it is to think that some of Shrewsbury's old treasures have survived and, as in this case, will soon be available for us to see.

By the way, good luck to Shrewsbury’s Britain in Bloom bid. When I hear how it goes, I’ll let you know.  

 

Speaking Up For The Stew - Saving an iconic building on Frankwell Quay

In the early middle ages, one of the crossing points into Shrewsbury was by means of a ford connecting the town to the area known today as Frankwell.  The fortified and partly inhabited St George’s Bridge was built in the mid-12^th century, crossing the river from Frankwell to the end of Mardol.  This bridge became known as Welshman’s Bridge in the 13^th century. 

A number of buildings in Frankwell show evidence of development there in medieval times. Certainly by the 16^th century it was a prosperous area. The Anchor pub stood in line to the approach of the old Welsh Bridge, but that came down, to be replaced by the present day Welsh Bridge in the 1790s.

Unsurprisingly, Frankwell Quay is part of a conservation area. Nowadays there’s not much left on the Quay to remind us of those impossibly distant days when the old Welsh Bridge spanned the river with its towers and jumble of dwellings.  But the very last vestiges of the old Welsh Bridge are still to be found, and not far from them is the building known as ‘The Stew’, which has been standing there since the days of the old Welsh Bridge. 

If you’re wondering which building I’m talking about, it’s the fenced-off and abandoned building immediately next to the Guildhall, which you may have walked or driven past and thought why doesn’t somebody do something about that place? Well, its owner wants to.  After years of allowing the building to fall into disrepair, he’s put in for planning permission to have it demolished and a boutique hotel built on the site instead. His view appears to be that it’s only worth pulling down. And there’s no doubt that it’s worth it to him, because the chance is there  to make a great deal of money.  But is it worth it to us?

I think this is something we need to talk about, think about and do something about. The Stew may look like a bit of a wreck to you or me, but it’s a repairable wreck with an honourable history, rooted in Shrewsbury’s trading past.  Once our sleepy River Severn was the second busiest river in Europe. As river highways went, it was up there with the best, the motorway of the 18^th century, giving legs to the Industrial Revolution - and one of its thriving ports was Shrewsbury.  

The early sixteenth century was when river trade really kicked off in Shrewsbury. Mardol Quay was where much of the action took place, but Frankwell Quay, built in 1607 by Roland Jenks, soon became extremely busy, with all the appendages of a port- storehouses, chandlers, warehouses and, in the 18^th century, The Stew. 

Traffic coming down river to Shrewsbury would have included timber floats, goods such as lead and lead ore, slate, bark for tanning, wood, butter, cheese, even pickled oysters from Milford Haven.  Grinshall stone was brought to Shrewsbury by road and loaded onto barges at the town quays. Coming up river were coal, iron, groceries, drink, soap and snuff.  Building materials such as lime and brick tiles came up from Ironbridge and Stourport.

Shrewsbury was an important trading town, its wealth in no small measure coming from its port.  We have little evidence left of those days - but we do still have the Stew.

If you live in Shrewsbury, go and take a look around the outside for yourselves. I can show you the photographs, but they don’t convey the imposing nature of the building. It doesn’t take much imagination to see what it could be restored to, and the impact that would have on Frankwell Quay.

If you start at the back of the building, you’ll be looking at the oldest part of The Stew, which used to be an old merchant’s house, of the same date as the old Guildhall on Dogpole.  Look at the dressed stone on its corners, and compare them with the stonework on the old Guildhall. The Old Guildhall’s a prestigious building, but the stonework for both is exactly the same. This gives some idea of how significant a building The Stew once was.  Its Georgian windows may have gone, but their brick arches remain, and I’m told that all the old corner fireplaces still remain inside. 

It’s not difficult to imagine the roof repaired, the brickwork re-pointed, the windows back and the building restored to its previous state, not just as a merchant’s house, but an important warehouse on the river front.    

The Stew stands in what for a long time has been a conservation area.  So significant a building is it that the current Guildhall was designed around The Stew’s features, in an attempt to complement them and fit in.  It’s sad that there’s only The Stew [and the remains of the old maltings opposite], to speak up for Shrewsbury’s past as a river port.  But that makes it all the more important that The Stew should be preserved.  

With a decision looming on The Stew’s future, it came as no surprise to find in my inbox an email from  Shrewsbury Civic Society.  I copy it here in full. This is our chance. We lost out on the Princess House development in the Square because many of us didn’t know what was happening, and so didn’t speak up soon enough. Let’s not lose out with The Stew. Instead let’s work to save this landmark building on historic Frankwell Quay. 

EMAIL FROM SHREWSBURY CIVIC SOCIETY:

You may have heard of Shrewsbury Civic Society's Campaign to save the Stew, a unique building in Frankwell connected with Shrewsbury's historic river trade. The building is the last vestige of this important aspect of the town's history, and we are desperate to save the building and have Frankwell Quay transformed into something the town can be proud of; a living record of Shrewsbury's trading past.

We have launched an e-petition to protest against demolition, and I wondered if you would take a look and consider signing. The link is attached below. You click on it and follow a fairly simple procedure:

1.  You will be asked to fill in a validation code, but this is given you just underneath;  four letters in bold type.

2.  . Once you have successfuly filled in the form, you will be sent a confirmation email. It is important to do what it asks, as this will validate the registration. ( You will simply have to click on a link.) Here is the link:

http://www.louder.org.uk/stew/

If you could also forward to anyone you think may be sympathetic to the cause, that would be great. Public opinion is the only thing that will save the building, in this current climate of financial expediency. Thank you very much.

PS. Many thanks to Mary de Saulles for the information on Shrewsbury’s river trade.  Her lovely book, The Story of Shrewsbury, can be bought in Pengwern Books in Shrewsbury Market, or online.

PPS. Here's a link to Shrewsbury Civic's Society's website, including a great pic of what The Stew could look like if restored: http://www.shrewsburycivicsociety.co.uk/2013/06/civic-society-questions-demolition-plans-for-the-stew/.