Oswestry is one of the principal towns on the Welsh borders, and is now the most flourishing and prosperous of any in the county. In 1801 there were 2,672 inhabitants; in 1831, 4,478; and in 1841, 987 houses and 4,566 souls; of whom 2,121 were males, and 2,445 females. The entire parish of Oswestry, including the town and liberties of Oswestry in 1841, contained 8,843 inhabitants. The town is situated on a gentle eminence, the streets are in general spacious, and there are many good houses, and retail shops in all the different branches of trade; yet vestiges of its antiquity, timbered buildings with projecting gables, are still to be seen in various parts of the town. The beautiful prospects from the high ground above the town are perhaps not surpassed by any in the county. The rich and luxuriant vale of Shropshire lies as it were a map beneath the feet; while the Staffordshire hills, Nesscliff, the Wrekin, and the Styperstones, are seen in the distance. Towards Wales, the alpine heights and lovely vales are seen in rich profusion; and here the beholder glances upon a country which was eminently distinguished as the birth-place and residence of the children of freedom—a people, who, by their independent spirit and martial prowess, for centuries chastised rapacity and injustice, and made oppression and tyranny tremble upon the throne. The parish of Oswestry contains the townships of Aston, Cynyion, Crickheath, Hisland, Llanvorda, Maesbury, Middleton, Morton, Oswestry, Pentregaer, Sweeney Trefraclawdd, Trevlock, Trefonen, Weston Cotton, and Wootton.
The Britons were in the possession of Oswestry till the latter part of the eighth century, when the warlike King Offa, passing the Severn with a mighty force, expelled them from their fruitful seats on the plains, and reduced the kingdom of Powis to the western side of the celebrated ditch still known by his name. The princes of Powis were then constrained to quit their ancient residence at Pengwern and remove to Mathrafel, in the vale of Myfod, and the plains of Shropshire became a confirmed part of the kingdom of Mercia. The Britons shortly after entered into an alliance with the king of Sussex and Northumberland, and, having made a breach in the rampart, passed the boundary at early dawn, attacked the camp of Offa in an unprepared state, and put great numbers to the sword. In the middle of the following century, we find Roderic, Prince of Wales, added Powisland to his dominions. He, according to the custom of gavel-kind, divided his principality among his children. To Anarawd he gave North Wales; to Cadell, South Wales; to Mervyn, Powisland. Each wore a talaith, or diamond of gold, set with precious stones; whence they were styled Y Tri Tywysog Taleithiog, or the three crowned princes. Bleddyn ap Cynoyn, who ruled Wales jointly with his brother, at the Conquest re-united the kingdoms of North Wales and Powis. The latter, however, eventually devolved to his eldest son, Meredydd, and Oswestry was called Trefred, in honour of this prince. He made the division, which finally destroyed the potent kingdom of Powis. To his eldest son, Madog, he gave the part which bore afterwards the name of Powis Madog. Madog’s chief residence was at Oswestry, where, according to Welsh historians, he built the castle about the year 1140. He died at Winchester, and his body was honourably conveyed to Powis, and buried at Myfod. His widow married Fitzalan, Lord of Clun; who, in right of his wife, obtained the town and castle of Oswestry. This William was a descendant of Alan, who came into England with the Conqueror, and was the first of the Fitzalans that was baron of Oswestry. This honourable distinction was possessed by the Fitzalans, a powerful race, that existed with fewer checks than common to dignity for more than five hundred years. The title of Baron of “Oswaldestre” is now held by the Duke of Norfolk. His ancestor, Thomas Duke of Norfolk, married Lady Mary, daughter of Henry, the last Earl of Arundel, of the name of Fitzalan, in the 13th of Elizabeth, when the lordship of Oswestry was conveyed to the duke. The Powis family subsequently became possessed of the manor. Powisland extended from the Broxton hills, in Cheshire, to Pengwerne Powis, or Shrewsbury, including a large tract of land in both those counties, and also comprehended a considerable portion of Wales. This part of England, previous to the reign of Edward II., was termed the Northern Marches, and was governed by a Lord President, who kept his court at Ludlow Castle, and lived in a style little inferior to that of royalty.
The town of Oswestry had various immunities and privileges granted by different monarchs. In the 12th of Henry III. John Fitzalan obtained the grant of a fair at his manor of Blancminster, upon the eve, the day, and the day after the feast of St. Andrew, and for two days following. Edward I. surrounded Oswestry with walls, that it might be less liable to plundering excursions, and as a key to his intended conquest of Wales. A murage or toll was imposed upon the whole county (except the burgesses of Shrewsbury) for the building of the same for a period of six years. The walls were about a mile in circumference, with an entrenchment on the outside, which could be filled with water from the numerous springs in the vicinity. The remains of this fortification may still be traced. There were also four gates, the only inlets into the town. These gates, in process of time, became exceedingly inconvenient for the passage of carriages and merchandise, and the Blackgate was taken down in 1766, by the consent of Earl Powis, the lord of the manor. In 1782, the corporation entered into an agreement for the demolition of the three remaining gates, and appropriating the materials to the erecting of a prison. This was carried into effect, and pillars substituted in their stead. The New Gate was built in the reign of Edward II. It was used as a prison and guard-room for the soldiers. Beatrice Gate is said to have been named in compliment to Beatrice, wife of Henry IV., and was probably erected in that king’s reign. Willow Gate or Wallia Gate took its name from being the thoroughfare into Wales.
The governing charter, previous to the date of the municipal act, was one of 25th Charles II., styling the corporation the “Mayor, Aldermen, Common Council, and Burgesses, of the Borough of Oswestry, in the County of Salop,” and appointing a mayor, fifteen aldermen, fifteen common councilmen, a steward of the lord of the manor, recorder, coroner, or old mayor, town clerk, &c. The mayor, steward, coroner, and recorder, were appointed to act as justices of peace for the borough. A court of quarter sessions for the criminal jurisdiction within the borough was appointed to be held by the mayor, as president, and one to three of the magistrates. The boundaries were from the beginning restricted to a certain district within the parish, and in the maps of the municipal boundary commissioners they are still further restricted to the more immediate vicinity of the town. Under the new municipal act, the borough is divided into two wards, and appointed to be governed by six aldermen and eighteen councillors, under the usual corporate style. It is included in schedule A among the boroughs to have a commission of the peace, which has accordingly been granted. The following is a list of persons who have served the office of mayor since the new municipal act came into operation:—1835, John Croxon, Esq.; 1836, Francis Campbell, Esq.; 1837, Charles Thomas Jones, Esq.; 1838, George Dorsett Owen, Esq.; 1839, Griffith Evans, Esq.; 1840, Thomas Penson, Esq.; 1841, John Hayward, Esq.; 1842–3, William Williams, Esq.; 1844, William Price, Esq.; 1845, Thomas Rogers, Esq.; 1846, John Miles Hales, Esq.; 1847, Thomas Hill, Esq.; 1848, John Jones, Esq.; 1849–50, Edward Morris, Esq. The magistrates who act in the Oswestry district are Joseph V. Lovett, Esq., Thomas Lovett, Esq., Richard H. Kinchant, Esq., W. W. E. Wynne, Esq., the Hon. Thomas Kenyon, and Viscount Dungannon.
Recorder: John Robert Kenyon, Esq. Coroner: John Miles Hayes, Esq. Town Clerk and Clerk to Magistrates: Richard Jones Croxon, Esq. Clerk of the Peace: Robert Simon, Esq. Surveyor: Mr. Thomas Hughes. Treasurer: Mr. George Cooper. Superintendent of Police and Clerk and Inspector of Markets: Mr. Jacob Smith. The police force consists of a superintendent and six constables. The income of the borough for the year ending September, 1st, 1850, was £706. 8s. 5d. The principal items of expenditure were for salaries, £180; police constables and watchmen, £143; prosecutions, £65; gaol expenses, £144; conveyance of prisoners, £29; and miscellaneous expenses, £152.
For upwards of two hundred years the Welsh webs were brought to Oswestry, as the common market, and there bought by the Shrewsbury drapers. The Welsh wished to draw the trade more into their own country, but the English purchaser could not be persuaded to follow them, on account of the unsettled state of the Principality; and thus Oswestry was constituted an emporium of merchandise, in consequence of its contiguity to Wales. The “Company of Drapers” in Shrewsbury made a weekly visit to Oswestry to purchase the cloths. The peril attending these pilgrimages must have been considerable, if we may judge from an order appearing in the records of the Shrewsbury corporation, where, in the 25th of Elizabeth, 1583, it was ordered, that “no draper set out for Oswestry on Mondays before six o’clock, on forfeiture of 6s. 8d., and that they shall wear their weapons all the way, and go in company.” The corporation paid yearly the sum of £20 to the vicar of St. Alkmund for reading prayers; 6s. 8d. for the light; and 6s. 8d. to the clerk for ringing the bell on Monday mornings, before the drapers set out for Oswestry market. In 1621, it was agreed by the drapers to buy no more cloths in Oswestry. The then recorder of Oswestry regarded this withdrawment as inevitably ruinous, and says, “Oswestry flourished and was happy indeed by reason of the market of Welsh cottons. A thousand pounds in ready money was left in the town every week, sometimes more; but now, since the staple of cloth is removed to Shrewsbury, the town is much decayed and impoverished, Shrewsbury having engrossed the said market.” For the defence of the rights secured to the burgesses by the various municipal charters, the members of each trade formed themselves into a guild or company, whose duties it was to guard the monopolies of the brotherhood. Thus we have notices of the company of hatters, glovers, butchers, corvsers, bakers, hucksters, and ale sellers. The charter of Richard II. directs “that the bailiff should treat as well the poor as the rich, and that the burgesses within the town and liberty should be quit of tolls and stallage. That none but burgesses should buy any fresh hides or new cloth in the borough. That they should not be bound to keep any fugitive coming to the church or churchyard, except only for one day and one night next after such flight, within which time they should give notice to the bailiff of the hundred, who should take such fugitive into custody. That the burgesses should be discharged from all fees of the constable, usher, and door-keeper of the castle, for any felonies committed within the town, for which such burgesses might be imprisoned in the castle, except that the constable at the feast of St. Stephen should receive from every mansion of the burgesses one loaf, from every hall one penny, and from every cottage one halfpenny. That the penalty of 6s. 8d. should be imposed for selling Shrewsbury ale in the town, half of such fine to go to the burgesses, and half to the lord. That no such ale should be sold in the town of Chirkslound, Melverdeley, and Kinnardeley, except in the town of Chirk, under the like penalty. That none of the inhabitants of those lordships, or of Oswestry, Edgerley, and Ruyton, should take any cattle, corn, victuals, or other articles to any foreign fair or market, until the same had been exposed for sale in the town of Oswestry, under the penalty of 6s. 8d.” Philip, Earl of Arundel, in the year 1581, affected an uncommon concern for the well doing of the town, and in a charter of that date he states “that by the misconstruction of certain words of the charters theretofore given to the town, several acts which ought to have been passed by the common council, had been done and proceeded in by the general voice of all the co-burgesses, whereby contentions and suits of law were occasioned by such popular governments. Therefore for the quiet and better ordering of the said town,” he arbitrarily appoints the mode of election, directs an oath to be taken by all the burgesses to be loyal and faithful to the Queen’s Majesty, and to be loving and dutiful to the said earl and his heirs, grants them a number of privileges, which had been enjoyed, as he states, from time immemorial, and, with true baronial modesty, not till the close does he discover the secret of all this paternal affection, by the significant clause,—“In consideration of all which agreements, and to the intent that the said bailiffs and burgesses may show their loyalty and good will to the said noble earl, they do undertake to pay him one bundled pounds.”
In the year 1400 Oswestry was burnt during an insurrection of the Welsh. After a peaceable submission of upwards of a century, they made an attempt to regain their ancient independence under the renowned Owain Glyndwr. Lord Grey had unjustly seized upon some part of Glyndwr’s estates, which lay between Llangolen and Corwen. Owain sought satisfaction without having recourse to parliament, but he met with no redress. He, therefore, animated by his descent from the ancient line of British princes, caused himself to be proclaimed Prince of Wales on September 20th, 1400, and commenced his warlike career by attacking his enemy, Lord Grey, from whom he immediately recovered the lands which that nobleman had deprived him of. Relying on the valour of his soldiers and the inaccessible mountains of his country, he set at defiance the whole power of England. He assembled his forces at Oswestry, in order to join Lord Percy against the king. The Welsh chieftain sent off his first division of 4,000 men (an account of which has been noticed in a preceding page), and at the head of 12,000 men had the mortification of being obliged to remain inactive at Oswestry. Gough observes, that about two miles from Shrewsbury, where the Welshpool road diverges from that which leads to Oswestry, there stands an ancient decayed oak tree, of which there is a tradition, that Glyndwr ascended it to reconnoitre; but finding that the king was in great force, and that the Earl of Northumberland had not joined his son, Percy, he fell back to Oswestry, and immediately after the battle retreated precipitately into Wales. In 1409 Glyndwr made great devastations in the Marches, and the estates of Lord Powis suffered greatly. Several of the officers of the lords of the Marches, for the sake of preserving their country from the fury of the Welsh, by their own authority formed a truce with Glyndwr and his partizans. King Henry, highly indignant at these agreements, immediately issued writs to the lords of Knockin, Ellesmere, and other bordering manors, to cause such illegal compacts to be rescinded, and Glyndwr and his adherents to be pursued and attacked with the utmost vigour. Owain appears after this to have secured himself in the mountainous districts of Wales, and to have acted entirely upon the defensive. He died on the 20th of December, 1415.
That dreadful scourge the plague raged in Oswestry in 1559, and continued throughout the principal part of the year, during which time upwards of five hundred persons were swept away. About half a mile from the town, on the Welshpool road, is Croes wylan, where a cross formerly stood, the base of which still remains. During the time of the plague, the market is said to have been held at this cross, lest the country people by coming into the town should be infected. The plague again appeared in Oswestry in 1585, which the parish register states began in March, and continued until July, when three score and four persons died. The market for the sale of the flannel webs was held at Knockin until the calamity abated. In 1542 there was a fire in the town, by which two long streets, with extensive property, were consumed. In 1567 a fire again broke out and burnt two hundred houses. The houses were then principally built of timber. Leland, who passed through Oswestry in the time of Henry VIII., says, “There be within the town X notable streates: the iii. most notable streates be the Cross streate, the Bayly streate, and Newgate streate. with barns for corn and hay to the number VII. score several barns. There is a castelle set on a mont, be likelihood made by hand, and ditched by south west, betwixt Beatrice streate and Willow gate, to which the wall commith. The towne standeth most by sale of cloth made in Wales. There goeth thro’ the towne by the Crosse a broke, comming from a place caullid Simon’s well, a bow-shot without the waulle by N.W. This broke commith in by the waulle betwixt Willow gate and New-gate, and so renning through the towne, goith out under the Black-gate. There be no towers on the waulles beside the gates. The towne is dicked about, and brokettes ren ynto it. The chirch of St. Oswalde is a very fair leddid church, with a great tourrid steple, and it standeth without the New-gate; so that no church is there within the towne.”
The Castle.—The remains of the cattle consist only of an artificial mount on the north side of the town. It had a deep ditch extending to Beatrice gate on the one side and Willow gate on the other. According to Caradoc, the Welsh historian, the castle was founded in 1149, by Madoc, Prince of Powis. Leland says a tower went by the name of Madoc’s tower, which seems to confirm the account respecting the founder of the castle. The English historians, however, assign to it a more ancient date, and inform us that it was in being before the Norman conquest, and that Alan had the town and castle bestowed upon him by William the Conqueror soon after his accession. In the 15th of John, John, nephew of William Mareschall, Earl of Pembroke, being guardian of the Marches of Wales, was at that time constituted governor of the castles of Blancminster and Shrawarden, in the county of Salop. Llewellin, son of Griffin, son of Madoc, made his complaint to the archbishop of Canterbury against this constable of Oswestry, for disturbing him in the possession of the third part of the ville of Ledrot, and who had compelled him to send two young noblemen to be put to death in an ignominious manner, in derogation of their birth and extraction, which disgrace their parents would not have undergone for £300 sterling; also that the constable had twice imprisoned sixty of his men, for which they were forced to pay 10s. a man for their liberty; also that when the Welsh came to Oswestry fair, the constable would seize their cattle by driving them into the castle, and refusing to pay for the same. The castle and manor continued in the possession of the Fitzalans, with little interruption until the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The square now called Bailey-head was the ballium or yard of the castle. A mount in the castle field outside the great ditch is the site of the Barbican, or the outer gate at which the halt and blind were usually relieved, and is still called the cripple gate. Within the precincts of the castle there stood a chapel, dedicated to St. Nicholas, wherein during troublous times religious services were performed. The castle was garrisoned for Charles I. in the beginning of the civil wars; a Colonel Lloyd was governor, Sir A. Shipman succeeded him, and continued in that post until the town and castle surrendered to the parliamentary forces under the Earl of Denbigh and General Mytton, the 22nd June, 1644. Gough, in his manuscript history of Middle, relates, in his own quaint manner, the assault and capture of Oswestry. “I will speak of some things that have happened here in my time. The governor of this town, when it was a garrison for the king, pulled down many houses that were without the walls, lest they might shelter an enemy; the church also being without the walls was pulled down, and the top of the steeple only leaving where the bell frame stood; the bells were brought into the town and the organs were embezzled after. The town was well fortified, and the castle, which is but small, yet very strong, built by a Prince of Wales, A.D., 1149. General Mitton, with parliament forces, came and besieged it; he planted his cannon near that part of the steeple which was left; he battered the gate, called Church gate in such sort, that the garrison of soldiers could not stay at it. General Mitton supposing it was so, but not being sure of it, sent George Cranage, a bold and daring young man, to see whether it were so, who took a hatchet in his hand and went to the drawbridge, and found that the soldiers were gone, and the gate was open, for the cannon had broken the doors, and this Cranage broke the chains of the draw bridge with the hatchet, and let it down, so that the soldiers made haste to enter the town, but those who were within made like haste to meet them, which Cranage perceiving, and seeing a box of drakes standing within the gate ready charged, he turned the box of drakes towards those in the town, and one of Cranage’s partners came with a fire lock and gave fire to them, which made such slaughter amongst the garrison that they retreated and fled to the castle. Cranage was well rewarded, and being well filled with sack, was persuaded by the general to hang a battau on the castle gate; now a battau is an iron shell as big as an iron pot; it was filled with powder and wild fire balls, and had a handle with a hole in it, by which it might be fastened with a nail to any place. Cranage takes this battau, with a cart nail and a hammer, and got from house to house into the house next the castle, and then stepping to the castle gate he fixt his battau, and stepping nimbly back again escaped without any hurt. The battau burst open the gate.” The inmates were granted quarter, but the royalists failed notwithstanding several attempts to regain the town. The castle was shortly afterwards demolished, and nothing is now to be seen of it but a lofty circular mount.
About half a mile N.W. from the town of Oswestry is an insulated eminence of an oblong form, surrounded by two ramparts and fosses of great height and depth, which in former days was known by the name of Caer Ogyrfan and Hen Dinas, but now recognized by the title of Old Oswestry. This elevation bears the strongest marks of having been at some time a place of defence; the top is an extensive area containing 15a. 3r. 0p., and the fortifications which encompass it cannot be less than forty or fifty acres. A gentleman who visited this spot in 1797 says that a well and pavement had been discovered here. Some pieces of iron supposed to be armour had been dug up. The original entrance to this fortification appears to have been on the opposite side of the hill from the great Holyhead road. There is strong ground for the belief that this eminence was the original site of the town, which afterwards took and now bears the name of Oswestry, and that it was planted there by the ancient Britons at a very remote period. That it was known to the Britons will appear evident from the fact of both the names we have mentioned as having been applied to it being British or Welsh, Caer Ogyrfan signifying “The Field of Ogyrfan,” who was contemporary with King Arthur, and Hen Dinas signifying “The Old City.” It is evident that this magnificent work was not a sudden operation like that of a camp, but that it was a work of immense labour and ample security. The character of the elevation answers to the description given of the position of ancient British towns. They are said almost always to have been placed on a hill, and Speed tells us that the Britons “gave the name of townes to certain combersome woods which they had fortified with ramparts and ditches, whither they resort and retreat, to eschue the invasion of their enemies, which stand them in good stead, for when they have by felling trees mounted and fenced therewith a spacious plot of ground, there they build for themselves houses and cottages.” In 1767 as much timber was cut down from the ramparts as sold for £17,000.