Visit us

Wellington is a historic maket town with interesting shops and market stalls, with Sunnycroft National trust property near by and the Wrekin inviting you to take a walk and enjoy the fabuous views.

There are some great events on through the year visit  http://www.wellingtonunderthewrekin.webeden.co.uk   ( A great website full of info about wellington) for details.

 a Parade,         

Morris Dancers  

and  Fire Eaters   Jugglers, and lots more.

 The Wrekin barrel race is another uniqe event.

Each Saturday through the summer there is entertainment in the square, thanks to the hard work of  H2A 

The town has many great shops to visit of course our shop on Market street which is just on the edge of the market and near the car park ( free for 2 hours), Ken Francis Butcher well worth a visit for some of the best fresh meat around, Peter Jones Carpets and Beds, a family run business, who offer great quality and service. Jaynes Fishing shop,a haven for anglers,  Allums jewellers for that special gift or a treat  for yourself, E.A. Accessories where you can get Handbags purses fashion jewellery and lots more.
The Market with over 100 stalls is on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Friday and Saturday, where there is  great fresh produce grown locally,Fruit and Veg Cakes and Bread, Cheese.Meats Sweets galore all your old favourites, An Alladins Cave which really is just that, Shoes,Slippers and Boots, Curtains, Bedding, Lingerie, Pet food and everything  for our four legged and two legged friends, Fancy dress, secondhand Books, Jewellery,Cards for every occassion, Flowers, Crafts, Hoovers and repairs, Watches and straps a hairdresser, Key cutting and Shoe repairs Hand bags Purses to name just a few. 

Pictures of the Market on Easter Saturday 2009 Traders were raising money for the Help the Heros Charity.

 Discovering Wellington

"BEING KEPT ON TENTERHOOKS"

"BEING KEPT ON TENTERHOOKS" is a commonly used phrase but many people don’t realise that its roots reflect Wellington’s mediaeval farming and industrial past.
This little gem of local history was discovered , with lots of others, when Malcolm Lander had a coffee and a chat with Shropshire historian and author  Alan Frost.

 Apparently a  small alleyway between Church Street and Bridge Road currently known as Ten Tree Croft was originally a short lane called Tenter Croft which led to a small farmhouse or ‘croft’ where locally manufactured sheep skins were stretched out to dry on tenterhooks.

During the Middle Ages, Wellington was little more than a village and, in common with much of lowland England, owed its livelihood to rearing sheep and processing fleeces for, among other things, clothing. In fact, Walker Street also derives its name from this production process as it was an area where ‘walkers’ trod fleeces in a slurry of Fullers Earth to remove oil and dirt particles. Tan Bank is another street whose name relates to earlier times when leather, another by-product of farming, was treated before sale to leather workers and dyers.

By the Thirteenth century, a small market had developed on The Green. Here  churchgoers gathered when attending services at the newly-erected perpendicular-style parish church taking the opportunity to buy and sell farm produce. Recognising the potential for raising income in the form of tolls on all livestock brought into the village for sale, Giles of Erdington, then lord of the manor, obtained a charter from the Crown to legitimise the market. There has been a market in Wellington ever since. In fact, a small portion of The Green survives in the form of a triangular car park outside the Nat West bank and remains the only identifiable plot connected with the town’s origins.

In the years that followed, ambitious plans led to the formation of New Street, whose boundaries were divided into burgage plots (long strips of narrow land with dwellings fronting the street); many of those dwellings became shops and their medieval origins are reflected in those same narrow frontages. Further plans to encourage  expansion of the town centre included the laying out of three new roads: Butcher Row (now Market Street), Walker Street and New Hall Lane (which subsequently became Foundry Lane, where bell making was the predominant business). This latter lane, which was obliterated to make way for the town’s Civic Offices and swimming baths, was intended to lead to a new residence, presumably for the lord of the manor. It transpired that the unwelcome arrival of the Black Death in the middle of the Fourteenth century curtailed further expansion; Wellington was destined to remain a village.

However, the arrival of the Industrial Revolution in the Eighteenth century created a new opportunity for the town. Outlying coal and iron mining and furnace operations in the rough area bounded by Wellington, Coalbrookdale and Donnington attracted new businesses into Wellington: lawyers, accountants, bankers, rope, basket and candle manufacturers as well as producers of agricultural and mining machinery. Furthermore, an increasing population also needed somewhere to buy everyday essentials: clothing, bread, vegetables, meat and, of course, beer. Wellington, lying close to the main Holyhead Road, was perfectly placed to serve those needs, particularly after 1849 when the arrival of the railway emphasised the town’s crucial and dominant position in the local economy, a position that was to be enhanced by the creation of John Barber’s Smithfield, where livestock auctions began in a small way and eventually became the largest outside London.

For well over a hundred years Wellington was characterised by innumerable small shops and businesses specialising in the manufacture of agricultural and industrial machinery.

Strolling through the town, evidence of Wellington’s manufacturing past is never far away. For example, King Street was the site of the Victoria Toy Works, where Norah Wellings’s famous dolls were made and exported across the globe, being sold in Harrods and on the ocean-going liners of the Cunard Line. Some 100,000 dolls, were sold annually. The Jolly Boy Sailor, which featured the name of each individual ship on its hatband, became the company’s most recognised product making the firm’s biggest pre-war customer , somewhat surprisingly, the Royal Navy!

It seems that the more you look the more you find with records chronicling a manufacturing heritage  as varied as ‘the busiest chair making company in England’, situated just off Market Street, to ‘the largest wood yard in Britain’ on the site of a new housing development off Bridge Road. Land occupied by the former Smithfield is now the site of a Morrison's supermarket.

The general decline in manufacturing nationally took its toll locally, yet Wellington remains not just a busy town but also a popular shopping destination. It makes the most of its compact centre and enjoys the benefits of town-centre rail and bus stations, free car parking and, being situated less than a mile from the M54, is very handy for motorists.

Unlike many market-origin towns, Wellington can still boast a thriving market at its heart, run by The Wellington Market Company.The market  Founded by royal charter at least as early as 1244, Wellington Market is the definitive Shropshire market. It opens four days a week (Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday) and runs daily in the week prior to Christmas. The vast Victorian Market Hall houses over 80 stalls, with many more spilling out into the surrounding grounds, most of which are under cover to protect customers from adverse weather.

Offering everything from cream cakes to continental cheeses some of the best fruit and veg around , shoes sweets and offering the diversity of a department store with the added bonus of an expert running each ‘department’, solving those shopping problems couldn’t be easier. In addition to the regular market, a farmers' market is held on the third Saturday of every month in the central Square – the market's historic home.

It's true that when it comes to chocolate box charm, our town is no match for Ludlow or Shrewsbury. But if you want to see a real, working Shropshire market town, Wellington is a good place to start. What's more, if you appreciate local produce and good, friendly service, our independent shops (most offering specialist goods where expert advice comes as standard), market stalls, cafes, pubs and restaurants make a welcome change from the depressingly monotonous high street and out-of-town shopping centre norm.

Wellington is not a clone of other towns, it is unique place sitting under the Wrekin.

 Written by Malcolm Lander