Town History

To find out about the campaign to create a Museum of The Wrekin in Wellington,

A settlement first emerged at Wellington around the 6th Century. Evolving as it did just north of Watling Street, its name has sometimes been presumed to be a corruption of 'Watling Town', but may have derived from 'Weo-leah-ingaton', meaning a settlement by a temple in a grove.

By the time of the Domesday Book in 1086, Wellington was a manor taxed at 14 hides and valued at the princely sum of £18. Much of the area around The Wrekin was still wooded and under the Normans became a Royal Forest, providing them with a plentiful supply of timber and game. A deer enclosure was created at Wellington Hay between Watling Street and The Ercall, from which Haygate Road gets its name.

In the medieval period, Wellington established itself as a market centre for the locality, receiving its royal charter in 1244 (or possibly earlier). The cloth and leather trades began to grow in the town, and Shrewsbury's tanners were selling hides at Wellington Market in the early 1400s. In the centuries that followed, bell founding, rope making and nail making also became important.

In the 18th century, Wellington saw the Industrial Revolution unfold on its doorstep, and became increasingly important as the economic and administrative centre for the growing Coalfield districts in the east of the county, as well as the farming parishes to the north and west. The coach trade also brought prosperity to the town, if fleetingly, with coaches stopping daily on route from London to Shrewsbury - at The Falcon for people and at The Cock for post. The 'urban renaissance' that touched so many towns in this period saw a number of elegant Georgian brick buildings go up in Wellington, and two of the town's landmarks - the medieval church and timber-framed market hall - disappeared completely. The old church was given a neo-classical replacement designed by George Steuart, architect of neaby Attingham Hall, but the market traders had to wait over fifty years to get a permanent roof over their heads again.

In the 19th century, the role of Wellington's manorial lords, The Foresters, faded with the creation of an Improvement Commission to tackle amenities and a Market Company to run the market. Not only was a new market hall built in the mid-Victorian period, but also a fire station, police station, a new workhouse, new schools and new churches - most of the churches catering for the growing band of non-Conformists, prominent in the business life of the town. The railway was driven straight through the centre of Wellington in 1849 (at the inconvenience of several inhabitants of the cemetary!) and the town found itself an important railway junction. Businesses like Barber's Smithfield Market, Corbett's Ironworks and Groom's Timberyard boomed as Wellington grew into an economic hybrid - half country town, half manufacturing town.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Wellington was the second most commercially important town in Shropshire behind Shrewsbury. That importance persisted until the late 1960s, when the creation of Telford New Town nearby dramatically reduced its status. The larger high street stores only have eyes for Telford these days, but scores of independent businesses have remained in Wellington - butchers and bakers, music suppliers and picture framers, solicitors and accountants and an array of others. As shoppers increasingly look for 'better' rather than 'bigger', it is these businesses, often making the most of local produce and local knowledge, that are reaping the rewards and putting Wellington back on the map.