Bishop's Castle

Bishop's Castle is a small town with a long history. It has a more urban appearance than many of the other small towns of Shropshire and for a long time it was the smallest urban borough in England, a distinction it lost in 1967. Its population is currently 1521. It is located about 8km (5 miles) north of Clun, 29km (18 miles) SW of Shrewsbury, 40km (25 miles) west of Bridgnorth and 13km (8 miles) SE of Montgomery across the Welsh border in Powys.

The history of the town began in about 792 AD when a Saxon landowner ceded estates in the area to the Bishop of Hereford in thankfulness for being cured of palsy. The castle, of which only the mound now remains, was built by the bishops of Hereford in 1085-1100. A new town was created to serve the castle in 1127. The castle was rebuilt in stone in 1167, for many years thereafter it served as a centre for the Bishops of Hereford, however re-organisation in 1559 meant that Bishops were dispossessed and by the start of the English Civil War 80 years later the citizens had helped themselves to most of the stone.

The town was granted its borough charter by Queen Elizabeth 1st in 1573. The town badge bears the date 1609 and shows a stylised picture of the castle. The town council had two splendid silver maces made in 1698 which were carried in procession by the bailiffs. Although Bishop's Castle was never a large centre of population it returned two members of parliament until 1832. The small electorate made it feasible for vested interests to indulge in lavish expenditure to sway the voters. In 1802 it is recorded that the successful candidates spent £6515 3s 4d for entertainment in local public houses, £1285 for ribbons, £511 for a band, £107 17s 6d for the strewing of flowers and £31 10s for five strongarm men from Bridgnorth. The electorate was about 200.

The visitor to Bishop's Castle will soon discover that the main street of the town is called High Street and rises quite steeply from the church at the south of the town to the town hall which dominates the High Street. The site of the castle is just to the north of the town hall and is now occupied by the Castle Hotel of 1719. The church is dedicated to St.John the Baptist and was built in 1219 but only the tower remains of the original building which was demolished and rebuilt in 1860. There is good Victorian stained glass in the church.

The Town Hall is a handsome brick building dating from 1765. Immediately to the west of the Town Hall is one of the older houses of Bishop's Castle called the "House on Crutches" shown in the picture on the left. Its upper floors are supported, as the name would suggest, on wooden posts so that a public path passes beneath the upper floor. The house was nearly derelict in 1985 when it was purchased by the Old Castle Land Trust and eventually converted into a local history museum which opened in 1993. It is well worth a visit.