Recorder: Uvedale Corbet, Esq. Clerk of the Peace: George Potts, Esq. Town Clerk: Roger Charles Blakeway, Esq. Clerk to Justices: William P. Gordon, Esq. Treasurer: Mr. Joseph Roden. High Constable: Mr. Richard Patten.
Wenlock is remarkable as being the first borough that acquired the right of representation by charter in parliament. The boundary of the present parliamentary borough is the same as prior to the passing of the Reform and Corporation Act, but the municipal boundary is not so extensive. The revising barristers divided Wenlock into the three wards of Wenlock, Broseley, and Madeley; Wenlock ward to consist of the several parishes of Much Wenlock, Ditton Priors, Hughley, Monk Hopton, and such part of the parish of Shipton as lies on the left side of the streams called Brockton brook and the river Cowe in descending the same. The Madeley ward to consist of the parishes of Madeley and Little Wenlock; and Brosley Ward to consist of the parishes of Broseley, Barrow, Benthall, Linley, and Willey, and the Extra Parochial Liberty of Posenhall. And having regard as well to the number of persons rated to the relief of the poor in each ward, as to the aggregate amount of the sums at which all the said persons are so rated, they apportioned and assigned six councillors and two aldermen to each of the said wards. The town returned one member to parliament in 1478. It afterwards acquired the privilege of sending two, who were elected by the burgesses (in number about five hundred), the writ being returned by the bailiff. The greatest number of electors polled previous to the Reform Act was 258. The freedom was acquired by inheritance, and occasionally by election from a common hall. The whole precinct now called the franchise appears to have been included in the original charter. The number of electors is now upwards of nine hundred. The lord of the manor holds annual courts at Michaelmas and Easter, at the former of which constables are appointed.
The town of Wenlock gives name to a deanery, and the Borough and Franchise were formerly co-extensive with the hundred of Patintern, mentioned in Doomsday book, which comprised the following parishes—viz., Much Wenlock, Little Wenlock, Broseley, Madeley, Benthall, Barrow, Linley, Badger, Beckbury, Priors Ditton, Stoke St. Milborough, Eaton-under-Heywood, Hughley, Shipton, Monk Hopton, Willey, Deuxhill, and the Extra Parochial Liberty of Posenhall. By an order of Quarter Sessions, held at Shrewsbury, April 4, 1836, the parishes of Beckbury and Badger, were henceforward to be taken as part of the Shiffnal division of the hundred of Brimstree; and the parish of Deuxhill was henceforward to be taken as part of the Bridgnorth division of the hundred of Brimstree: the parishes of Eaton and Shipton were henceforward to be taken as part of the upper division of the hundred of Munslow; and that the parishes of Culmington and Stoke St. Milborough shall henceforward be taken to be part of the lower division of the hundred of Munslow; and it was further ordered that the day from which this should take effect, should be the 11th day of April, 1836.
The Parish Church, which stands near the ruins of the priory, is a venerable structure, consisting of nave, chancel, and side aisles, with a square tower, surmounted by a neat spire of timber, covered with lead. The structure bears many evidences of great antiquity, and the architecture of the Saxon and Norman ages is discoverable. The interior, during the present year, has been restored and re-pewed at a cost of £1,350. The arches, which separate the nave from the side aisles, rise from clustered pillars, and are very beautiful, having been cleared of the plaster and mortar which had accumulated for ages. A lofty round arch separates the nave from the chancel, which contains the remains of a very elegant sedilia, together with a piscina and aumbrey, and several old brass memorials. The Church is dedicated to the Holy Trinity; and from the parish register, it appears that service was first celebrated in the English tongue in this church on the 26th of June, 1559. The church-yard has just been enlarged by the addition of three quarters of an acre, and contains several tombs, but none of them sufficiently remarkable as to deserve special notice. The living is a vicarage, rated at £12. 9s. 6d., in the patronage of Sir W. W. Wynn: incumbent, Rev. William Henry Wayne. The Methodists have a small chapel in the town. The National School was built in 1847, at a cost of about £1,000, of which £500 was obtained of the National Society and the Committee of Council on Education. 150 children attend.
The Town Hall or Guild Hall is an antique structure, chiefly composed of timber and plaster, resting on piazzas. It is evidently of great antiquity, but there is no record to show the date of its erection. In the parish register of Wenlock, however, which seems to have been also a chronicle of remarkable events of the parish, it is stated that the house over the prisons, which is clearly an addition to the original building, was put up in 1577. The interior consists of two commodious rooms, the first is the sessions room, and over the Recorder’s seat are the arms of Charles II. The inner room is the Municipal Court House, which has recently been panelled and furnished with carved oak of the most elaborate and costly workmanship, principally at the expense of W. P. Brookes, Esq., one of the borough magistrates. The chairs (two of which were presented to the corporation by the Rev. R. H. G. More), as well as the table, chimney piece, and seats, are remarkably handsome, the cost is stated to have been not far short of £1000.
The Savings Bank is a plain brick building situated near the church. The total number of depositors on November 20th, 1850, were 1,909, including thirty-six charitable societies and thirty-four friendly societies. The capital stock of the bank at the same period amounted to £62,650. 12s.; of the total number of depositors there were 1,061 whose respective balances did not exceed £20., 451 were above £20 and not exceeding £50., 210 not exceeding £100., 66 above £100 and not exceeding £150., 42 not exceeding £200., and nine were above the latter sum. The deposits of the charitable societies at the same period amounted to £2,608. 11s. 8d., and of the friendly societies to £3,248. 17s. 6d. Treasurer, George Pritchard, Esq.: Secretary, Mr. William Smith.
The Public Library is situated near the ruins of the abbey, and contains about 1,500 volumes, mostly valuable works, chiefly presented by gentlemen in the neighbourhood, and the Duke of Wellington, the Marquis of Anglesey, and Major Herbert Edwards. Wenlock Edge is a precipitous ridge about two miles from Wenlock, formerly densely covered with wood. King Henry I. on his March to Shrewsbury to besiege that town was under the necessity of employing detachments from his numerous army to cut down the wood and make a road ere he could proceed.
Wenlock Monastery, Bishop Tanner says, that a nunnery was erected at Wenlock about the year 680, by Milburga, daughter to King Merwald, and niece to Walphere king of Mercia, of which she became abbess; she was renowned for sanctity, and it is recorded by William of Malmesbury, who wrote early in the 12th century, that for some “time after the arrival of the Normans, through ignorance of the place of her burial she was neglected; lately however, while a new church was erecting, a boy running violently along the pavement, brake into the hollow of a vault and discovered the body of the virgin, when a balsamic odour pervading the whole church she was taken up, and performed so many miracles, that the people flocked thither in great multitudes; large spreading plains could hardly contain the troops of pilgrims, a common faith impelling all, nor did the saint deceive their expectations, for no one departed without either a perfect cure or a considerable abatement of his malady, and some were even cured of the king’s evil where medical advice had been unavailing.” Traditions of miracles worked by Milburga are still preserved in the neighbourhood, and her shrine is said at length to have been burnt in the market place. The blind devotion which led crowds of people of all ranks with their hands filled with rich oblations to offer at this shrine produced a large income to the monastery, and for some time kept in the shade the wondrous doings of canonized saints of the rival establishments in this neighbourhood. The canonization of saints was for centuries a source of great wealth to the Roman Catholic Church, and much of their success no doubt depended on a wily priesthood trumpeting forth their miraculous powers among the ignorant multitude. To show the craftiness of the priesthood in this respect we may observe that St. Dunstan after his death in 988 was canonized, and his relics were held in such esteem that they shortly after produced an immense revenue to the cathedral of Canterbury. About the time of Henry VII. however, the monks of Glastonbury anxious to bring a portion of grist to their own mill, began to boast of having the relics of St. Dunstan in their possession, which soon turned the tide of affairs and caused the rich offerings and oblations to flow to Glastonbury. This sorely troubled the archbishop of Canterbury, who had the tomb of Dunstan opened, when the body was found in a lead coffin in his pontifical habit; the archbishop therefore immediately issued his mandate charging the monks of Glastonbury to desist from all further boasting of their possession of St. Dunstan’s relics. Notwithstanding the objectionable mode the priesthood had of obtaining riches, it is but justice to observe that their revenues and gains were all expended either in alms or hospitality, or in building and adorning their magnificent churches and abbeys; and although learning was then at a low ebb, it being generally styled the dark or illiterate age, yet what learning there was then was mostly to be found in the cloister of the monks, where some attained to great reputation for their proficiency in knowledge.
The house founded by Milburga was destroyed by the Danes, but was restored by Leofric Earl of Chester, at the request of his wife, the lady Godiva. Before the Norman conquest it had again fallen into decay, and in the 14th of William the Conqueror was rebuilt and endowed by Roger de Montgomery, Earl of Arundel, Chichester, and Shrewsbury, a person of vast possessions in these parts, who placed therein a prior and convent of monks of the Cluniac order, and made it a cell to the house of De Charitate, in France; this house suffered the same fate with other alien priories till it was naturalized in the 16th year of Richard II. It was dedicated to St. Milburga, and according to Dugdale, in the 26th of Henry VIII. had revenues to the yearly value of £431. 1s. 2d.
In the Monastican is the patent of King Edward III. reciting and confirming the charter of Isabel de Say, lady of Clun, whereby she granted to these monks the church of St. George, at Clun, with seven chapels depending on it, namely, the chapel of St. Thomas, in Clun, of St. Mary’s, at Waterdune, of St. Swithin, at Clumbierie, St. Mary, at Cluntune, St. Mary, at Appitune, with those of Eggedune, and Subbledune. There is likewise an inquisition taken the 29th of Edward I. determining the right of presentation to the cell of Ferne to be in the monks of Wenlock. In “Stevens’ Supplement,” seven deeds are translated into English from the Latin originals in the hands of Francis Canning, Esq., of Foxcote, in the county of Warwick, viz., the deed of Geoffrey de Say, for the manor of Dointon; a confirmation of that deed by Henry II.; another deed by the same king, granting that these monks might always enjoy the said manor, unless he and his heirs gave them eleven pounds per annum in churches and other things in lieu of it; the charter of Henry III. to them for the same manor; the deeds of William Mitleton and Adam Fitzwilliam about a yard of land in Mitleton; a composition between Simon, Dean of Brug, and the prior and convent of Wenlock, about the chapel at Duddington. The prior of Wenlock, John Cressage, on surrendering the monastery to King Henry VIII. had a pension of £80 per annum assigned him, together with the manor house of Madeley; twelve monks had also pensions assigned to them amounting in the aggregate to £100 per annum. Besides the churches already mentioned, the following advowsons belonged to the monastery at the time it was surrendered, viz., Wenlock Magna, Wenlock Parva, Clun, Burton, Shipton, and Eaton. It had also at an earlier period Sutton, near Shrewsbury, Stoke St. Milborough, and Church Preen. During the wars between Henry III. and his barons he was often called into the Marches of Wales, and several documents were signed at Wenlock by the king, which would lead to the supposition that he was frequently lodged and entertained by the Prior. The monastery is situated near the east end of the churchyard, and the entrance from the town was through a massive gateway; very considerable remains of this magnificent and spacious fabric are still to be seen, and fragments are scattered to a great distance from the site. The great centre tower has long since disappeared, but the four massive piers the bases of which are still in existence, show that it must have been built on a scale of no ordinary splendour, and the size must have been equal to many of our cathedrals. The Chapter House is probably a part of the building erected by Roger de Montgomery, and is a singularly beautiful example of interesting Norman arches, supported on columns of which the capitals are all of different designs. It was entered from the cloisters by three richly ornamented circular porches. Of the Priory church only the south transept and a part of the south aisle of the nave remain, they present an elegant example of the early English style of architecture, but no record has been discovered of the date of their erection. The fragments of the south side of the nave consist of pointed arches which have never been open, but within them there are inserted lower arches of a similar form rising from octagonal pillars. Over the higher arches are the remains of a beautiful gallery which ran along the whole of the second story of the church, and consisted of a series of pointed arches, divided by slender clustered pillars; above these are single lancet windows forming a clerestory; between every arch runs a slender clustered pilaster, and where they break off at the top are remains of the ramifications of a groined ceiling. The room adjoining the dormitory was probably occupied by those monks whose task it was to perform the midnight office of the choir. From the bases of the columns which are all that remain of the choir it appears to have been in the same style of architecture as the Chapter house. The Lady Chapel was east of the choir and may still be traced by its foundations. The length of this stately structure from east to west was 401 feet, the nave being 156 feet, space under the middle tower 39 feet, choir 156 feet, Lady Chapel 48 by 40, and the breadth of the nave and aisles 66 feet.