History of the Mount in Shrewsbury, UK

Le Croswey'. This is the name recorded in 1295 for the road out of Shrewsbury, through Frankwell and on to Welshpool in county Powys, Wales and Oswestry, Shropshire, England; much later it was known as the Irish Road. In the eighteenth century the Dee estuary began to silt up and boats could no longer use Chester as the embarkation port for Ireland. Coaches ran instead from Shrewsbury to Holyhead, travelling through Oswestry, Llangollen and staying overnight in Conway. The first advertisement for this run appeared in the Shrewsbury press, 1803.

The Mount Map - 1849

In the same year (1803) at a meeting in the Shropshire Guildhall, the tolls for 'The Mount gate leading to Pool and Oswestry' were advertised for auction. The price, to include Montford Bridge Check Gate, was suggested at £660. The Mount gate stood at the top of the hill out of Frankwell and although there is no trace of it any longer, it probably stood near the entrance to The Mount Nursing Home. It must have been exceedingly difficult for horses to pull coaches out of Frankwell and up The Mount; in the nineteenth century, Thomas Telford was entrusted with the task of improving this section of road and lowering the gradient. During the time Telford was county surveyor he had two milestones put in place along The Mount.

As you walk out of Frankwell and up The Mount you encounter 'The Boot Steps', named after 'The Boot' Public House that once stood on the site that has become The Boot Garden. Climb the steps and you reach Heritage Walk after the hermit of Cadogan's Cross. Thomas Gamel in 1355 left the sum of two shillings to the 'hermit of Cadoganscross'. The Mount has strong associations with the Welsh Saint Cadogan, identified as Caddugan ap Bleddyn, a Welsh Prince who opposed the English in 1097. A Shrewsbury chapel and cross, stood somewhere near the entrance to Barracks Lane and in 1542 we read of 'sixpence for wine being given to the Lord President's Chaplain of preaching at Cadogan's Cross on Rogation Day'. The Cross figures in the Chronicles of Myddle as being a site of illicit UK weddings. The Shropshire chapel, dedication to St. Cadogan, was reported as falling into lay hands in the third year of Edward VI's reign (1550). In 1604 the chapel was reported as, 'still remaining, though in a ruinous state of repair', it was patched up by the corporation as a pest house in the great plague that raged Shrewsbury killing 667 people. The exact site of the chapel has never been pinpointed.

During the Civil War, Lord Cape was entrusted with the defence of Shrewsbury town and with making Frankwell 'a strong place'. A fort, Cadogan's Fort, perhaps utilising the ruins of St. Cadogan's Chapel was erected near the turnpike on The Mount, across to Copthorne Road. With a gun emplacement on the crest of The Mount the fort held out for some time after the Shrewsbury Castle fell to the Parliamentarians.

In the eighteenth century the original UK - Bull in the Barn inn stood near to the spot where Cadogan House new stands. The land either side of Barracks Lane was once pasture, a map dated 1849 indicates the fields being known as 'Barn Field' and 'Bull and Barn Piece'. The original Bull in the Barn at one time earned notoriety from the number of irregular marriages that took place there, a practice in some way connected with the earlier Cadogan's Chapel, on the site of which the inn is said to have stood. Today, The Bull in the Barn is situated in the Georgian terrace originally known as Cadogan Place.

Until 1870, Barracks Lane was known as 'Nog-Shoppe Lane' after the coarse cotton fabric, 'nogs' which used to be washed and dried in the fields nearby. Barracks Lane is the old road into Wales,UK and continuing across Richmond Drive and out onto The Mount by Brickfield Flats where it disappeared down Shelton Lane towards Shelton Roughs. In 1829 the Shrewsbury road to Wales was re-aligned to what it is today, many houses were subsequently built along this new route and a new Suburb of Shrewsbury was born.