Shropshire 31 - Shrewsbury - From the Bronze age to the Romans/ From the romans to medieval Shrewsbury/ From pottery to Darwin

---

With the coffee and croissant refreshing me I was ready for the next part of my morning . It was only 10.15 and I knew that the major service would take until lunchtime . I needed to waste another hour at least before I could find a cafe for my early lunch with yet another double espresso on the cards . If I had not been called up by then to tell me the car was ready I had already earmarked a walk back up to Castle Street and beyond to the Castle with its Regimental Museum of the Shropshire Light Infantry . I was looking forward to that as my great grandfather had apparently served in that regiment . Apart from a line in his obituary I had no knowledge of his service and hoped that perhaps I might fill in the gaps in the Museum or at least be pointed in the right direction . I had enough to fill my time until Ziggy was ready to be picked up.

Walking into the museum it looked small . It would not take me long to see what was on offer I thought . A mum and her small child were talking to the volunteer guide . The guide was pointing them in the direction of the workshops and issuing treasure hunts and pencils . Eventually as they moved on the volunteer greeted me . The museum is on two floors she said . Go straight on and you will reach the Roman section . Come out and climb the stairs . Upstairs you will find medieval Shrewsbury and many other delights . Just follow the route you cannot go wrong .

My first stop was inside a Bronze age reproduction Round Hut . A commentary started as I got inside and the disembodied voice told me how the Round House was heated , which way it was built and how it was used . Reproduction artifacts were piled up to give the impression that someone still lived there . As interesting as it was I had other ideas. Roman interested me more . Having been in many museums featuring roman artifacts I had little idea what would be here . Would it have many items ? I was shocked . The room was filled with everything you could think of that a Roman might have or need in this world and the next . Cases after cases of roman swords and Samarian ware . Gravestones inscribed with the story of the person who once was buried close by. One intrigued me . A triptych with one panel inscribed with a history of some long dead roman wife and mother . The next panel filled with the details of her dead son . The third panel empty. Perhaps it was intended for her husband . The father of her child . Had he remarried and chose not to be buried and near her . His story immortalised in the third part of the stone ? Had he moved back to Italy and died there ? I would never know but standing in front of the partially completed memorial I did wonder what happened to him .

Each cabinet gave a different perspective on Roman Life - writing materials , letters of commendation written in lead and used as a reference upon retirement from the legion. Bone hair combs , gold jewellery and the magnificent Wroxeter Mirror . Convex in shape, shiny but unwieldy it was beautifuly made with handles decorated with flowers . I could imagine the roman lady standing in front of it , probably squinting at the reflection whilst her slave maid held it up.

I climbed the stairs - there were paintings on the walls. Notable Shrewsbury families . Views of the town . Upstairs I found myself walking along a long gallery . On one wall were windows overlooking the buildings surrounding the museum . To the other side a long installation made entirely of glass pictures . Each section was made up of around nine or more small square photographs that had been etched somehow onto glass . The installation had a name but I did not make any note of it . The glass panels worked a little like magnifying glasses . If you looked closely at each one they had a different theme - leaves, a street scene in the town, a face, a church , a flower , the river . Each one was different . It would have taken me hours to really look at each one and take them in. I walked along the gallery and stopped at some but passed others before I reached the bottleneck . A volunteer surrounded by four elderly visitors . They took up the doorway and I had to squeeze past them as they asked question after question and showed little signs of moving on.

The medieval section included paintings of prominent Shrewsbury residents dressed immaculately in their Sunday finery . A bed stood in the middle of the room . The Corbett bed dated from 1593 and it had been lovingly restored . The hangings were all new and had been embroidered by the local Embroidery guild . A section of a wood eave from a house in the town was attached to the opposite wall . The house had been demolished and removed to some open air museum or other and parts had been returned to Shrewsbury . Around the corner was a section related to the Civil War in Shropshire , the bones of the Shropshire Mammoth . Of course that interested Sion who commented that the bones were massive and Woolly his best friend was not anything like the size of the Shropshire mammoth . To be fair the bones were very large . A burial was reconstructed around another corner with the message to be aware it was the remains of a real person who died a long time ago in the Bronze Age . His jaw ravaged by an infection that probably in the 21st century would not have killed him .

Section after section was filled with displays of the Shropshire Hoard . Thousands of pounds worth of coins buried and long forgotten becoming treasure trove . A wooden Bronze Age boat that once plied the marshes of the county . Shropshire pottery industry was well represented by blue and white tea sets and garish red mantle clocks that once graced a Georgian household . The exhibits were wide ranging . A measuring took used by Thomas Telford , taxidermy, birds eggs and dried bats . Sections devoted to the finds of Darwin . And finally a case full of Georgian ladies clothing and underwear . Corsets made locally and an area devoted to 1930 swimwear .

I could have spent longer wandering from section to section but the phone rang . My car was ready bar for the complimentary wash and valet . I headed out and for the bus back to the garage . Ziggy was all clean and tidy. She passed her servicing with flying colours . Nothing else needed doing until her MOT in February which hopefully she would fly through.

And so to home . Was it a good day? Yes it was apart from losing my gloves . I had them in the Italian cafe so what I did with them after that is a mystery .

---