Welcome to the home page of Victoria County History (VCH), Shropshire.

Here you can find out about our work on the history of the county of Shropshire, details of our activities and other news, and you will also find PDF drafts of our publications, including sections of VCH Shropshire VI: Shrewsbury Part ii, which we are currently working on. The latest draft to be added was the one on Roman Catholicism.

Latest News

We welcomed Dr Lloyd Bowen of Cardiff University to our Annual Meeting on Saturday 28 October. In his lecture Dr Bowen explored the history of Shrewsbury in the decades before the Civil War, revealing a town with marked religious fissures. As he showed there was a strong ‘Godly’ or ‘Puritan’ party in Shrewsbury. He introduced us to the Shrewsbury-born London Ironmonger Rowland Heylyn and the radical preacher Jules or Julines Herring. Dr Bowen explored Shrewsbury’s role in the circulation of the first pocket-sized (and affordable) Welsh language bible (which turned out to be something of a commercial disaster). And he showed how the fissures in Shrewsbury society fed into the civil war divisions in the county. A fascinating talk which was well received by our audience.

The other business of the Annual Meeting was to receive the Annual Report and Accounts, and these were expounded by Richard Hoyle and Nigel Hinton.

 

Dr Lloyd Bowen

Could you be our new publicity and social media manager?

We continue to look to recruit to the committee a publicity and social media manager for VCH Shropshire. We have a good story to tell and we want someone to shout it from the rooftops (as it were). The ideal person would be able to work over the whole range of media from writing press releases to managing a Facebook page and twitter account, whilst liaising with other societies and organizations, and managing our Mailchimp account.

The work is not onerous but is intermittent, with busy times and slack times, If you might be our person, whether you could do the whole job or just part of it, then please email Richard Hoyle at richard@rwhoyle.org.uk or Fiona Sheridan at secretary@vchshropshire to express an interest and we will get back to you.

Buy our book on the history of Wem

The Wem short is 174 pages, with 35 figures, 5 maps: paperback. Available by post from VCH Shropshire.

£16 plus

£2.50 delivery

Email treasurer@vchshropshire.org.uk, to arrange a bank transfer.

If you prefer to send a cheque, please send a note of the address you want it delivered to (or print and fill in this form) and a cheque for £18.50, made out to
VCH (Shropshire) Ltd.
to:

VCH Shropshire
Bratton Villa
Heighways Lane
All Stretton
Shropshire
SY6 6HN

You can also find the book in various local retail outlets, including The Wem Bookshop, 81 High St, Wem, SY4 5DR; Pengwern Books, Fish St, Shrewsbury, SY1 1UR; and Shropshire Archives (Wednesday–Friday), Castle Gates, Shrewsbury, SY1 2AQ, for £16.00, but check to see whether they are open before you travel there.

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Every few months we send out an email newsletter with information about events, activities, and new items on this web site.