Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, United Kingdom

Economy | Railway

๐Ÿด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ Shrewsbury is a market town and the county town of Shropshire, England. The town is situated on the River Severn, 150 miles (240ย km) north-west of London.

The town centre has a largely unspoilt medieval street plan and over 660 listed buildings, including several examples of timber framing from the 15th and 16th centuries. Shrewsbury Castle, a red sandstone fortification, and Shrewsbury Abbey, a former Benedictine monastery, were founded in 1074 and 1083 respectively by the Norman Earl of Shrewsbury, Roger de Montgomery. The town is the birthplace of Charles Darwin and is where he spent 27 years of his life.

Situated 9 miles (14ย km) east of the Welsh border, Shrewsbury serves as the commercial centre for Shropshire and mid-Wales, with a retail output of over ยฃ299 million per year and light industry and distribution centres, such as Battlefield Enterprise Park, on the outskirts. The A5 and A49 trunk roads come together as the town's by-pass and five railway lines meet at Shrewsbury railway station.

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Economy Throughout the Medieval period, Shrewsbury was a centre for the wool trade, and used its position on the River Severn to transport goods across England via the canal system. Unlike many other towns in this period, Shrewsbury never became a centre for heavy industry. By the early 1900s, the town became focused on transport services and the general service and professional sector, owing to its position on the A5 road, part of the strategic route to North Wales. In 1958 the Sentinel Waggon Works at Shrewsbury was taken over by Rolls-Royce Limited for the manufacture of their range of diesel industrial engines, so that the factory at Derby could concentrate on aero engines. The factory which manufactured steam and later diesel locomotives had come on the market in 1956.

The town is the location of the town and county councils, and a number of retail complexes, both in and out of the town centre, and these provide significant employment. Shrewsbury is well known for being home to a high number of independent businesses, including shops, cafes and restaurants. Wyle Cop in Shrewsbury is said to have the 'longest uninterrupted row of independent shops'. Four in five jobs in the town are in the service industry. Within this sector, the largest employers are the administration and distribution sectors, which includes retail, food and accommodation.

Shrewsbury is home to four shopping centres. The Darwin and Pride Hill shopping centres house many high street retailers such as Marks & Spencer, H&M, Topshop and Primark. Riverside provides further retail accommodation for stores including Wilko. A plan to redevelop Riverside and integrate a new development with the Darwin and Pride Hill centres was granted planning permission in April 2012. The project is dubbed "New Riverside". The Parade Shopping Centre is a fourth centre exclusively housing independent retailers. There are two retail warehouse clusters: at Meole Brace Retail Park to the south, and at Sundorne Retail Park to the north. Major supermarkets in the town are the Tesco Extra at Harlescott, Morrisons on Whitchurch Road, Asda on Old Potts Way, and Sainsbury's at Meole Brace.

The visitor economy of Shrewsbury and Atcham was worth about ยฃ115ย million in 2001, with about 2,500 people employed directly in the visitor industry and 3,400 indirectly. There were about 3.1ย million visitors โ€“ both day visitors and staying visitors โ€“ to the borough in 2001, with 88% being day visitors and 12% being staying visitors; staying visitors accounted for 42% of spending. Shrewsbury's position of being the only sizable town for a large area, especially to the west in Mid-Wales, allows it to attract a large retail base beyond that of its resident population. This is not only evident in the retail sector, but also in the healthcare sector, where the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital has the only A&E department westwards until Aberystwyth, about 75 miles (121ย km) away.

Businesses in Shrewsbury voted in favour of a Business Improvement District in late 2013 and Shrewsbury BID started operating in April 2014. Shrewsbury BID delivers on a five-year business plan of projects, which include major destination marketing campaigns, significant cost savings for businesses and strategic work ensuring the best possible town centre environment in which business can flourish. The company is governed by a board of directors and employs three staff full-time.

Although a less prominent brewing centre than at Burton-on-Trent, beer made in Shrewsbury was celebrated as early as about 1400 when the bard Iolo Goch praised the supply of "Crwg Amwythig" dispensed at the Sycharth palace of Owain Glyndลตr. In 1900 there were eight breweries in the town, chief among them being Southam's and Trouncer's, which also had their own maltings and owned many local public houses, as well as five other maltsters, but the conventional brewing industry gradually closed after takeovers in the 1960s, and the last maltings, at Ditherington, in 1987. A real ale brewery, The Salopian Brewery, was established in the town in 1995. It was based in the Old Dairy on Mytton Oak Road before relocating in 2014 to Hadnall a few miles north of the town.

In terms of social and economic deprivation, according to the Overall Index of Multiple Deprivation of 2004, one Super Output Area (SOA) in the town is in the bottom 15% of all areas nationally. This area is in the ward of Harlescott. A further four SOAs fall into the bottom 30% nationally, these being in the wards of Monkmoor, Sundorne, Battlefield and Heathgates and Meole Brace. The most affluent areas of the town are generally to the south and west, around the grounds of Shrewsbury School, and the Copthorne area.

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Railway Five railway lines connect the town to most corners of Shropshire and the region. Shrewsbury railway station is served by Transport for Wales Rail and West Midlands Trains with trains running north to Chester, Manchester Piccadilly, Crewe and Wrexham General, south to Hereford and Cardiff Central, west to Aberystwyth, and east to Birmingham International via Telford, Shifnal and Wolverhampton. Heart of Wales line trains also operate to Swansea.

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Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, United Kingdom 
<b>Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, United Kingdom</b>
Image: Adobe Stock Kev303 #266181785

Shrewsbury was ranked #1016 by the Nomad List which evaluates and ranks remote work hubs by cost, internet, fun and safety. Shrewsbury has a population of over 71,715 people. Shrewsbury also forms one of the centres of the wider Telford-Shrewsbury metropolitan area which has a population of over 278,000 people. It is estimated there are around 3,580 businesses in Shrewsbury.

To set up a UBI Lab for Shrewsbury see: https://www.ubilabnetwork.org Twitter: https://twitter.com/UBILabNetwork

Twin Towns, Sister Cities Shrewsbury has links with:

๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ช Bayreuth, Germany ๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฑ Zutphen, Netherlands
Text Atribution: Wikipedia Text under CC-BY-SA license | Nomad

  • George Hubbard |

    ๐Ÿด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ Architect George Hubbard is associated with Shrewsbury. He was twice Vice-President of the Royal Institute of British Architects. ย 

  • Kenneth Russell Brady |

    ๐Ÿด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ Poster Designer/Architect/Cartoonist/Graphic Designer Kenneth Russell Brady is associated with Shrewsbury.

  • Henry Dare Bryan |

    ๐Ÿด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ Architect Henry Dare Bryan is associated with Shrewsbury. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA) in 1902.

  • James Alfred Swan |

    ๐Ÿด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ Architect James Alfred Swan is associated with Shrewsbury. He was awarded the Soane Medal and the National Gold Medal, South Kensington, 1897.

  • Edmund Livingstone Wratten |

    ๐Ÿด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ Architect Edmund Livingstone Wratten is associated with Shrewsbury. He was elected an Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA) in 1925. ย 

  • John Loughborough Pearson |

    ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ช ๐Ÿด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ Architect John Loughborough Pearson is associated with Shrewsbury. He was awarded the RIBA Queen's Gold Medal in 1880.

  • William Edward Willink |

    ๐Ÿด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ Architect William Edward Willink is associated with Shrewsbury. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA) in 1898.

  • Arthur Guy Chant |

    ๐Ÿด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ Architect Arthur Guy Chant is associated with Shrewsbury. In 1942 he was a founder member of the County Architects' Society and its President in 1950-51.

  • Thomas Meakin Lockwood |

    ๐Ÿด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ Architect Thomas Meakin Lockwood is associated with Shrewsbury. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA) in 1887.

Antipodal to Shrewsbury is: 177.249,-52.707

Antipodal to: Shrewsbury 177.249,-52.707

๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฟ Dunedin 170.474,-45.884 d: 19112.1  

๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฟ Otago 170.483,-45.867 d: 19110.8  

๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฟ Balclutha 169.75,-46.233 d: 19115.2  

๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฟ Christchurch 172.617,-43.517 d: 18937.5  

๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฟ Canterbury 171.58,-43.543 d: 18913.5  

๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฟ Invercargill 168.373,-46.413 d: 19068  

๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฟ Queenstown 168.658,-45.033 d: 18957  

๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฟ Wellington 174.767,-41.283 d: 18731.2  

๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฟ Hutt 174.917,-41.217 d: 18725.5  

๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฟ Lower Hutt 174.917,-41.217 d: 18725.5  

Bing Map

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