Shrewsbury

Sister cities

• Zutphen

History

Evidence of Neolithic occupation of a religious form dating back before 2,000 BC, was discovered in 2017 in the grounds of the medieval Church of the Holy Fathers in Sutton Farm, making it Britain's oldest place of worship. An Early Bronze Age urned burial was excavated at Crowmeole in 2015. An Iron Age double ring ditch has been excavated at Meole Brace. Amongst other finds, parts of an Iron Age sword and scabbard were recovered. At Meole Brace, an extensive roadside settlement along the line of the Roman military road connecting Viroconium Cornoviorum and Caersws was uncovered, with evidence of trading of amphorae and mortaria. A major discovery was the finding of the Shrewsbury Hoard of more than 9000 Roman coins in a field near the town in 2009. It is claimed that Pengwern, sometime capital of the Kingdom of Powys (itself established by the 440s), was at Shrewsbury, and it has been said in Parliament that the town was founded by the late 600s, the basis for this likely the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle's account of the 584 battle at Fethanleag, where Ceawlin defeated the Britons and captured numerous settlements including possibly Uriconium, which sets the historical context for the first likely textual mention of Shrewsbury in the poetry of the British prince Llywarch Hen, who mourned the destruction of Uriconium. Llywarch Hen's presence at the court of Prince Cynddylan at Pengwern, understood as the British name for Shrewsbury, implies the town's existence during this period. There is consistent tradition that the town was "founded in the 5th century, on occasion of the decay of the Roman Uriconium." Historian John Wacher suggests that Shrewsbury may have been refortified by refugees fleeing an outbreak of a plague in Viroconium around this time. Context for the nature…

Geography

Shrewsbury is about west of Telford, west of Birmingham and the West Midlands conurbation and about north-west of the capital, London. More locally, the town is to the east of Welshpool, with Bridgnorth and Kidderminster to the south-east. The border with Wales is to the west. The town centre is partially built on a hill whose elevation is, at its highest, above sea level. The longest river in the United Kingdom, the River Severn, flows through the town, forming a meander around its centre. The town is subject to flooding from these rivers. {| class="toccolours" style="float:right; font-size:80%; margin-left:0px;" |+ Areas of Shrewsbury | style="padding-right:1em;" | |} The town lies to the west of Haughmond Hill, a site where Precambrian rocks, some of the oldest rocks in the county can be found, and the town itself is sited on an area of largely Carboniferous rocks. A fault, the Hodnet Fault, starts near the town and runs north-east into the Stoke-on-Trent area. The climate of Shrewsbury is similar to that of the rest of Shropshire, generally moderate. Annual rainfall is typically , influenced by being in the rainshadow of the Cambrian Mountains from warm, moist frontal systems of the Atlantic Ocean, which bring generally light precipitation in autumn and spring. The nearest weather station is at Shawbury, about north-east of Shrewsbury town centre. The local topography, being that of a low-lying plain surrounded by higher ground to the west, south and east gives the Shrewsbury area its own microclimate – the absolute maximum at Shawbury of and absolute minimum of represents the largest temperature range of any individual weather station in the British Isles – although the maximum range of average temperatures tends to peak to the south-east of the…