What if the history of Shrewsbury had run differently to what we know? How would the town (or city!) look and be like today if different decisions and events had occurred in Shrewsbury's past?

Two examples spring to mind:

1. The Proud Salopians of the 16th Century didn't succeed in keeping Shrewsbury a town and Henry VIII gets his way - Shrewsbury would have become a city, with it's own Church of England diocese of Shropshire and a cathedral (where the Abbey is?)... would Shrewsbury today be more like other historic medium-sized cities like York or Norwich? Would we have become a target in World War II? Would the cathedral have been a major attraction, meaning that Shrewsbury today would be a major visitor centre?



2. The River Severn is made into a shipping canal in the late 18th Century, transforming places like Shrewsbury, Ironbridge, Bridgnorth and Highley into major industrial centres. Shrewsbury today would be much larger, with large Victorian-era industrial development and suburbs/inner-city. Shrewsbury would have been hit in the War and subsequently redeveloped by the modernists. The Severn would have had wharfs, docks, etc built along it, which today would have gone through redevelopment similar to the docklands of cities like London, Liverpool, Bristol and Manchester?



Above - a combination of alternatives 1 & 2? Shrewsbury Cathedral towers over the docks at Coleham.

Some some quick thoughts and examples there. An interesting idea for a book?

These 'what if?' questions are always very interesting. Pay me in real ale, and I could keep talking for hours, if not days...

1. Would Shrewsbury have become a major visitor centre if it had become a city in the 16th century?

I think it more likely that Shrewsbury would be like Lichfield - a pleasant enough place, a city with its own cathedral and diocese, but hardly a settlement of major significance. There are several cities around in England that are smaller in size than Shrewsbury and are really just towns - Ripon, Salisbury, Chichester, Rochester and Wells come to mind, but there must be others. For centuries, being the centre of a diocese hasn't been a matter of importance for the development of a town.

In terms of being a major tourist attraction - Shropshire is a bit off the beaten track. For overseas visitors, it's a long way from London. For domestic visitors, it hasn't got a beach.

In terms of attracting huge numbers of tourists, I'm sorry to say that a great cathedral doesn't do the job. Sadly, we would need something along the lines of Alton Towers instead. To give a local example, the city of Worcester has a truly magnificent cathedral, but it's not a major tourist centre on a national scale. Of course, it doesn't help that the rest of the place is largely horrible.

2. If the Severn had beome a major ship canal, would it have gone through Victorian industrialisation, post-War decline and more recent redevelopment?

No, I think what would have stymied much industrial development, even with the ship canal, would have been Shrewsbury's distance from the sea. Compare it with Gloucester - much further downstream and closer to the sea, and a place with deep-water docks. Although there was some heavy industry, it did not become a major Victorian industrial centre in the Birmingham/Manchester/Middlesbrough sense.

The factor which I think is crucial to Shrewsbury's development over the last 200 years is the railway. The town's medieval and early modern economy benefitted from Shrewsbury's position on a main road to Wales, with coach traffic increasing greatly after Telford's new road. But once the Liverpool to Birmingham railway opened, by-passing Shrewsbury, and eventually leaving it at the end of various branches from the main line, it could not develop into a major industrial centre.

Victorian industry tended to be more tied to raw materials than is the case today. I know there was coalmining nearby, in Hanwood for example, and metal ores around Snailbeach, but nothing on the scale of say the Black Country.

Since the 1970s/1980s there has been a major contraction in manufacturing employment, with the remaining heavy industry found in coastal locations (like Teesside) or as declining remnants in old industrial areas (like the Black Country). Light industry and high-tech is largely found on any great scale on motorways with good links to London and seaports/airports (like the M11 to Cambridge). I know that there is some light industry like food processing down the road in Telford, but it's hard to see how Shrewsbury could compete.