There is no evidence regarding the size of the population of Bridgnorth in the late 14th century, but since it was a small, walled town, ‘scant a mile in compace’, with only one parish church, there can hardly have been many inhabitants. The town was probably similar in size to Leominster, and, like that borough, it ‘stood by cloathing’.
The ‘proud Salopians’ of Shrewsbury, as their rivals termed them, achieved the high-water mark of their prosperity in the century before the Civil War: the town’s population rose from 3,000 to 7,000, the urban area was largely rebuilt, and the borough evolved from a county seat into the economic and social focus of an area stretching from the Wrekin to Cardigan Bay.
Sited on a ridge west of the Severn, Much Wenlock’s prosperity was founded upon the sale of March wool from sheep grazed on Wenlock Edge. However, the town itself, with a population of no more than 600-700 in the early Stuart period, was in decline: the prosperity which had built its magnificent market hall in the fifteenth century was but a memory, while the borough was not even designated a staple market for the wool trade in 1617. Meanwhile, such industry as the town did possess was being eclipsed by the growth of coalmining at nearby Broseley. VCH Salop, x. 429-30; J.U.
Ludlow Castle was built at the end of the eleventh century on high ground by a crossing of the River Teme, and the town first appears in Exchequer records in 1169. A borough by prescription, municipal government was established over 150 years before the first surviving charter, of 1449, which confirmed the existing structure of two bailiffs, drawn from a corporation of 12 aldermen and 25 common councillors.
Founded in the early twelfth century, Bishop’s Castle failed to prosper due to its distance from the Severn valley, the key communications route in the region; under the Stuarts it was a local market town with a population of little more than 500. The manor belonged to the bishops of Hereford until 1559, when it was sequestrated by the Crown, and in 1573, amid protests that episcopal charters were being disregarded, a royal charter appointed a corporation comprising a bailiff and 14 capital burgesses.
Situated on a promontory overlooking the Severn, Bridgnorth was chartered in 1157 and returned two Members to the Commons from 1295. While regarded as ‘the second town of Shropshire’, its economic base was surprisingly modest: the medieval cloth industry declined under the Tudors, particularly after knitted caps, a local speciality, fell out of fashion, and in the 1630s the town’s Ship Money assessment of £50 was only half that of the comparably sized borough of Ludlow.J.F.A. Mason, Bridgnorth, 10-17; T. Rowley, Salop Landscape, 187-91; J.
The small irregularly built town of Bishop’s Castle was situated in the Clun hills in the hundred of Purslow, 20 miles south-west of Shrewsbury and 17 north-west of Ludlow. It comprised four townships, Broughton, Colebatch, Lea and Oakley, and Woodbatch. S. Bagshaw, Salop Dir. (1851), 696. The proprietorial interest exerted by the Clives as owners since 1763 of the Walcot estate had latterly been severely challenged by an alliance of ‘independent’ burgesses and wealthy candidates.
Shrewsbury, a castellated marcher and county town, was built on the north bank of the navigable River Severn, traversed to its east and west by the English-bridge and the Welsh-bridge. William Hazeldine had a large iron foundry in the town, the Mucklestons a shoe factory, and textile production persisted; but Shrewsbury remained primarily an administrative and commercial centre and its nineteenth century growth was modest compared to that of its industrial hinterland. Parl. Gazetteer of England and Wales (1844), iv. 116-20; PP (1831-2), xxxvi. 170-81; xxxix. 201; H.
Bridgnorth, whose principal trades were in carpets, cloth, iron, malt and stockings, was a castellated market town bisected by the River Severn eight miles south of Wenlock. It was administratively distinct from the hundred of Stottesden and county of Shropshire within which it was situated. Parl. Gazetteer of England and Wales (1844), i.
Ludlow, the former seat of the council of the Marches, was a castellated town overlooking the confluence of the Rivers Corve and Teme, 24 miles north of Hereford and 25 south of Shrewsbury on the Herefordshire-Shropshire border. Its principal industry, glove making, was in decline. Parl. Gazetteer of England and Wales (1844), iii. 312, 313. The borough had not polled since the Oakly Park interest, held by the Herberts and Clives, began its long ascendancy in 1727, and representation was generally reserved for their family members and close connections.
