The Abbey, Unitarians and The Loopy Shrew
Why Shrewsbury?
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| Shropshire |
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| Shrewsbury |
Instead, we decided to spend the weekend in Shrewsbury. The town is only 34 miles (55km) from home, but although we have rounded the by-pass many times, we knew little of what lies within, so we decided to find out.
Shrooze or Shrowz?
Shrewsbury is pronounced "SHROOZ-bree" or “SHROWZ-bree” apparently at the whim of the speaker. According to ChatGPT ‘Shrooz-bee is favoured by locals and much of Shropshire,’ but ‘Shrowz-bree is widely used elsewhere and is perfectly acceptable.’ They may be right.
The Basics
Shrewsbury has a population of almost 80,000. It is Shropshire’s County Town and was its largest town until the rapid development of Telford in the 1970s.
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| Shropshire in England and Shrewsbury in Shropshire |
It was founded by Saxons on a low hill almost completely surrounded by a meander of the River Severn. The town grew within this easily defended space – a rough circle of radius 400 to 500m – and by the 15th century had largely filled it.
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| The Centre of Shrewsbury (my thanks to the copyright holder) |
There was little significant development beyond the river until the arrival of the railway in 1848. The town now spreads far and wide in all directions, but it is still the area within the meander that attracts
visitors. Here the medieval street plan remains largely intact; timber framed
buildings from the 15th and 16th centuries rub shoulders with grand Georgian
town-houses, amid a sprinkling of Victorian classical exuberance,
and modern geometrical design.
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| Old Market Square, Shrewsbury, empty at 8 o'clock on a Sunday morning The stone Old Market Hall with the clock dates from 1595 (grade I listed), the timbered dwelling (Grade II listed) was built in the 1570s as a merchant's house, to its right is a 4-storey Georgian town house built some 200 years later |
Over 660 listed buildings are crammed into this small space. There was never a plan, but somehow it works - though not for drivers. Once in possession of a parking space, it is best to forget the car and explore on foot.
Sat 25-Jul-2026
Shrewsbury Abbey
After extolling the delights of ‘inside’ I will start 'outside'; Shrewsbury Abbey is 200m the wrong side of the English Bridge.
It was founded in 1083 as a Benedictine monastery by Roger de Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury. Old Rog could never have imagined the Abbey Foregate Car Park, just across the road and the best spot for a photograph. I have excluded as many cars as possible.
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| Shrewsbury Abbey |
The Abbey may now be best known for Brother Cadfael, who lived here and solved murders in the 12th century. Ellis Peters (real name Edith Pargeter) produced 20 meticulously researched Cadfael novels between
1977 and 1994. 13 were adapted for television in the 1990s starring the impeccable
Derek Jacobi. I would believe he really was a medieval monk, but for his late
20th century sense of justice. The Abbey Foregate hardly looks medieval
so the series was filmed in Hungary, but there is a Cadfael/Edith Pargeter stained glass
window just inside the south door.
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| Jane Gray's Memorial window for Edith Pargeter, aka the Cadfael Window, Shrewsbury Abbey |
Nearby are the effigies of Richard Onslow, Speaker of the House of Commons, and his wife Katherine. Richard died in 1571.
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| Richard and Katherine Onslow, Shrewsbury Abbey |
On the north side is the shrine of St Winifred, (or Gwenffrewi),a 7th century Welsh virgin saint. The daughter of a nobleman in what is now Flintshire, she rejected her suitor, Caradog, deciding instead to become a nun. Displeased, he drew his sword and chopped her head off - a fine example
of early medieval toxic masculinity. A healing spring appeared where her head fell.
Fortunately, St Beuno (who was, conveniently, Winifred’s great-uncle) came along, restored her to life and called down the wrath of God on Caradog causing the earth to open up and swallow him.
St Winifred became extremely popular in England in the 12th century, resulting in her relics being moved to Shrewsbury, and for a several centuries pilgrimages were made to see them. There is no undisputable
earlier record of her, so she was, possibly, a 12th century fiction.
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| St Winifred's Shrine, Shrewsbury Abbey |
The Dissolution of the Monasteries did not leave Shrewsbury Abbey a ruin as (like Bolton Priory in Yorkshire) it also served as a Parish Church, but it was not unscathed. The north and south transepts were demolished in 1540, the remains visible in
the brickwork (half hidden by trees in my photo above). The eastern end of the
Abbey - everything beyond the round Norman arch across the nave in the photo below
- was also demolished.
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| The eastern end of Shrewsbury Abbey |
In the 1880s, the eastern end was rebuilt on a much smaller scale to a design by John Loughborough Pearson who also designed the reredos.
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| Reredos, Shrewsbury Abbey |
In the porch are plaques commemorating local people who died in two world wars. Most notable among them is the poet Wilfred Owen, whose name (Lieut. W.E.S. Owen M.C.) can be found by the poppy on the right-hand
column. Born in nearby Oswestry, Owen later lived in Shrewsbury.
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| World War I Memorial, Shrewsbury Abbey |
Outside, a memorial to Owen represents the pontoon bridge he was building across a canal when he was killed, aged 25, on the 4th of November 1918, one week before the armistice.
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| Wilfred Owen memorial, grounds of Shrewsbury Abbey |
It seems an underwhelming memorial for the finest poet of World War One.
Getting Organised
After a light but leisurely lunch near the Abbey we decided to walk across the English Bridge and find our hotel on foot. Distances are small once inside the meander, and roads are smaller. Some were also closed for forthcoming celebrations, and we have learned from experience, particularly in Portugal, that the number and angles of roads at medieval intersection can overwhelm a sat nav trained on more orderly modern street patterns.
We found the hotel, discussed the location of their car park with reception, explored a little then returned to our car. It took us three goes to get in the correct lane in the convoluted approach to the English Bridge, one of these errors took us on a lengthy detour. Finding the car park was easy enough once we had found the right cobbled lane off the narrow street, but by the time the car was parked it was check-in time, after which, being elderly, we had a nap.
Shrewsbury Unitarian Church
During our brief recce we found the Unitarian Church. The Unitarians are not a well-known, nor a large group. Today there are some 170 Unitarian churches, chapels and fellowships in the UK.
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| Shrewsbury Unitarian Church The Italianate Façade was added in 1839 |
Despite the date of 1662 at the top, The Italianate Façade was added in 1839. Behind is the site of the house of Richard Price and the chapel that was built behind that for security reasons.
Once Martin Luther set the ball rolling, people all over Catholic Europe started looking at church doctrine and deciding which parts to discard. The concept of the Trinity had always been problematic; Christianity is monotheistic so, some reasoned, if there is only one God, then it is God the
Father. Jesus then becomes an important, maybe inspired teacher but not actually
divine, and the Holy Ghost disappears in a puff of smoke. The virgin birth problem
also disappears - it was always a stretch of the imagination, and a dubious translation,
to boot. The idea of a Unitarian God first became popular in the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth and in Transylvania in the 16th century.
The English Civil War ended in 1649 with the execution of Charles I. Having rid themselves of a king who wanted to be an absolute ruler, England found itself governed by Crowell's Puritan zealots, which was worse. Oliver Cromwell died in 1658 and the monarchy was restored in 1660. With the intention
of settling everything down, The Act of Uniformity was passed in 1662, from now
on everybody would be Church of England and all services would use the revised prayer book.
It was not the first (nor last) act of parliament to achieve the opposite of its intention. Over 2000 C of E priests either resigned or were ejected, resulting in a growth in non-conformist churches. Presbyterians,
Congregationalists, Baptists and Quakers, were tolerated or persecuted depending
on whim. Two priests were ejected in Shrewsbury, the Rev Francis Tallents from St
Mary’s (see next post) became a Presbyterian minister, preaching clandestinely
in the house of a supporter.
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| Here is a nice picture of an old house in Shrewsbury - just to break up the big block of text |
The Act of Toleration in 1689 belatedly corrected the situation. A small meeting house was cautiously built behind the house of timber merchant Richard Price, with Tallents as the minister.
During the 18th century many English Presbyterian congregations rejected the Trinity and became Unitarian, though how much they owe to the earliest Unitarians in Transylvania is unknown. Also unknown is the date when the Shrewsbury congregation became Unitarian.
In 1715 a Jacobite mob destroyed the chapel, but it was rebuilt almost immediately. The government paid compensation and George I later granted the congregation a Royal Charter, which is preserved inside the church.
Modern Unitarians reject the idea of doctrine, preferring members to decide their own beliefs. Whether they are Christian or post-Christian is a matter for respectful discussion.
I like religious buildings, this blog is full of churches, mosques, synagogues and temples - Hindu, Buddhist, Daoist and others. I like the architecture, the art and the history they embody, but I am not a member of any religion denomination. I do not feel I need a religion, but if I ever changed my mind, I would probably join the Unitarians.
Important Local Unitarians
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| Samuel Taylor Coleridge |
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| Josiah Wedgwood |
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| Charles Darwin |
The Loopy Shrew
In the evening, we took a five-minute walk to the Loopy Shrew. We had booked a table there because they had an attractive
small plate menu and I liked the name.
Despite the falling temperature, the seats round all the tables outside the Loopy Shrew were filled with drinkers, and plenty of people were standing around them drinks in hand as though waiting for a table to become free. We found the door guarded by a couple of heavies (well middle-weights, to be fair)
– not something we are used to. Apparently deciding a couple of over 70s would
cause no problems, they stepped aside. Inside the voices were loud and the
music even louder. Beginning to wonder if this was a mistake, I accosted a member of staff, told him we had a booking and he led us
through the crowd to the restaurant - a large backroom where the noise level
was mercifully much lower. Perhaps all would be well.
I was toying with the idea of a cocktail when Lynne said ‘G&T’, so I had to have one as well – someone had to share the bottle of tonic or the gin would get drowned. A Tanqueray each and a shared tonic made
a pleasant start to the evening.
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| Lynne and a G&T, Loopy Shrew |
Lynne looked through the menu and decided she wanted the sea bass. I scanned the small plate menu but then spotted ‘Thai chicken and vegetable Penang curry’ among the ‘mains’. It was described as a ‘Thai red curry with coconut’ so I ordered it, despite my misgivings about the word ‘Penang.’
[Digression warning] We
have visited Penang. It is one of my favourite places but it is a
constituent state of Malaysia not Thailand. Eating in Penang is always a pleasure,
the mixed Malay/Chinese/Indian population means that food from three of the
world’s finest cuisines is produced by, and mainly for, those who understand it
best. And then there are the delights of the fusion dishes, Penang laksa is almost
worth the journey on its own. But curries in Penang are Indian, more exactly
Tamil Nadu, in style, not Thai. [Digression over]
Back at the Loopy Shrew, Lynne was telling me how good her sea bass was,...
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| Sea Bass, Loopy Shrew |
...while I was starting on a dish in which Thai red curry paste and chicken had been cooked in coconut milk. The milk had split into oil to fry the chicken, and coconut solids to add flavour to everything else. It is the same
trick used by Malays and Indonesians to cook rendang and I find the resulting flavour
combinations deeply satisfying.
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| Phanaeng Chicken curry, Loopy Shrew |
[Update: After a little research I have found the curry has nothing to do with Penang, which is a typo. The menu should have read Panang (or more properly Phanaeng) referring to a red curry/coconut dish originating in central Thailand, which I had not previously
encountered.]
The Loopy Shrew did a good job, though I have two quibbles i) lemongrass is an essential ingredient of red curry paste, and if there was any here, I could not taste it, and ii) the traditional garnish of makrut lime leaves, whose acidity provides an invigorating contrast to the heavy sauce, was missing. Fresh lime leaves are hard to find here, so this was unsurprising, but the rice cracker replacement was just a distraction. Most importantly, though, they did not back off with the chilli, as too many restaurants do. Anybody who orders a Thai red curry should know what they are ordering, and heat is part of the deal. So, for giving me heat and coconut, I will happily give them a solid 8/10.
We were both pleased with our main courses and felt we had space for a dessert. Lynne chose affogato, I picked Eton Mess Pannacotta, we both got what we expected, and very good they were too.
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| Pannacotta and Eton Mess, Loopy Shrew |
The bill, the whole of it, food, gin and wine, was roughly the same as we paid for one 5-course tasting menu last year. As we had a 5-course tasting menu each and a different (and expensive) wine with each
course, plus a few other things, last year’s wedding anniversary meal cost,…
let’s just say considerably more than our evening in the Loopy Shrew.
At a Michelin starred restaurant you expect to find four or five ingredients you have never heard of before, two or three
combinations you never imagined could go together, but do (smoked eel with
horseradish ice-cream, and apple granita on scallops were two memorable successes).
Two dishes should take your breath away with their excellence, and one will
disappoint. But eating five or seven courses takes a long time, you need to concentrate on
every mouthful, and we have reached an age were this becomes hard work.
The Loopy Shrew gave us four dishes, three of them familiar and the fourth, the Phanaeng curry, from a familiar genre. All were well cooked and presented and full of flavour. The restaurant is unlikely to win a
Michelin star, but that does not mean you cannot eat an excellent, satisfying meal
and enjoy a relaxing evening out.
As we left the volume of the music in the still crowded bar was louder than anything I have heard since my student days, now well over half a century ago. It reminded us that the Loopy Shrew is not aimed at our demographic, but somehow it did not seem to matter. I would recommend it.
Credits
Gnesener1900 - Shrewsbury Coat of Arms reproduced under CC BY-SA 3.0
Nilfanion Shropshire within England map. Adjusted for this blog reproduced under CC BY-SA 3.0
J Hewes, Map of Shrewsbury centre.
Images of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Josiah Wedgwood and Charles Darwin are in the Public Domain
All text and other images © David and Lynne Williams
David or Lynne Williams
