{"id":38700,"date":"2020-04-08T14:06:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-08T14:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/travel\/?p=38700"},"modified":"2021-06-23T15:00:19","modified_gmt":"2021-06-23T14:00:19","slug":"telford-the-five-minute-spare-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/travel\/telford-the-five-minute-spare-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"Telford: The Five Minute Spare Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"

Telford The Town Named After An Engineer!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Telford is situated in Shropshire, near Shrewsbury, named after the famous Scottish civil engineer Thomas Telford. Being one of the New Towns of the \u201960s and \u201970s has lots of things going for it. Many new towns were cleverly introduced to house population overspill from London. This works in two ways; the people get a longer lifespan for being out of the pollution and London benefits for having a less \u2018ghetto\u2019 vibe.<\/p>\n

Here however it was Telford’s job to take the overspill from Wolverhampton and Birmingham. At some point, after it was built \u2013 and probably to this day, \u2013 Shropshire council accepted residents that were keen on a more countryside lifestyle. Nowadays, they are arriving in a town that is nearly 150k residents strong. To some people, that\u2019s still countryside\u2026 Baffling.<\/p>\n

Anyway. We took a closer look at Telford to give it the Five Minutes Spare<\/a> spin that we have all come to know and love. Join us, to find out what the best bits are of this new-ish town.<\/p>\n

A little bit of Telford History<\/h2>\n

By comparison to other towns, Telford only has a little bit of history. Though settlement of the area goes way, way back to Roman times, the actual formation of the town happened all at once in the \u201960s. Up until then, Telford as we know it was a region made up of several different estates, farms, and moors.<\/p>\n

It is believed that the Weald Moors \u2013 the large area where wild things roam \u2013 to the north of town would have made up most of Telford, to begin with. When the Roman\u2019s invaded Britain circa 49 AD they conquered the north. This occupation stretched all the way up past Glasgow<\/a> in Scotland. Fortunately for us, the Romans were master builders. Their armies and slaves built the straight roads that crisscrossed the country and have done since around that time.<\/p>\n

The saying \u201call roads lead to Rome\u201d is not that untrue. The idea of building the roads was to make the transport of equipment, armies, and food, faster. The vast road network they built spanned out of Rome and across Europe. The phrase is not wrong.<\/p>\n

Now, we know that Wroxeter<\/a> was home to a Roman fort and was known as Viroconium. Wroxeter lies about halfway between Telford and Shrewsbury. This particular fort was the fourth largest Roman city in England. So around about 80 or 90 AD, the road that led through Telford and into Wroxeter would have been a busy traffic area. There would likely have been inns along the way or at least stations where Romans could refresh their horses to carry messages.<\/p>\n

As for the moors to the north of the town\u2026 Evidence in the local geology shows that it was formed during the last Ice Age. The whole area would have been at the bottom of a basin where two lakes met. For this reason, some of the best peat in England can be found in the Weald Moors[i]<\/a>. Early settlements are evidenced at the Wall Camp where the elevation of the land shows it was fortified to some degree. Speculation is that people would have taken advantage of the shape of the land to make defences\u2026 probably against the Romans.<\/p>\n

But I guess we all know how that worked out.<\/p>\n

Domesday is not really that Grim<\/h2>\n

Much like the Death card in a tarot deck, the Domesday Survey was not what it sounded like. Instead of predicting the end of the world, the book was a Land Register ordered by King William I of the Normans, just after he invaded England. It was put together to detail all the new wealth and lands he possessed. Previously, the word had been used to describe a statute or decree. Previous Doomsbooks had been ordered by kings in the past. In fact, A Doomseat<\/a> was the seat a judge held in a court\u2026 So although it sounds like it is predicting the end of the world, the Domesday survey was really just the last word in who-owned-what.<\/p>\n

Moving on then, the area that now belongs to Telford was written about in the Domesday Survey but again, not by the name we know it now. The area belonged mostly to farmland and estate owners. These estates were known as Wellington, Wrockwardine and Lilleshall. Wrockwardine had 13 villagers, 4 smallholdings, a priest and 18 ploughlands. A rich area which belonged to the Earl Roger of Shrewsbury.\u00a0 Wellington belonged to the same Earl, while Lilleshall<\/a> belonged to the clergy. This was the land of St. Alkmund.<\/p>\n

The next recording of the area throughout known history is actually in the 13th<\/sup> century when a priory was built between Wellington and a nearby settlement and a town sprang up around it. Wenlock Priory can be found to this day, although it lies in ruins. It was built by the little known Cluniac order who were active for a short period of time after the Normans arrived. It is believed that the priory was built on the ruins of an earlier monastery, going back to the 7th<\/sup> century. Although it is believed that a further 5 other monastic houses bought up vast swathes of the area in the 13th<\/sup> century, the town was still largely farmland.<\/p>\n

Some of the monastic houses built coal and iron foundries on their land but they were a few hundred years before their time. It would be the industrial revolution that saw this area grow\u2026 but it would be the 20th<\/sup> century before it became a single place.<\/p>\n

This is a nice place to stop to take a look at some fun stuff. What famous people have been born in Telford, we wondered?<\/p>\n

Famous People from Telford<\/h2>\n

There has been an impressive haul of famous people out of Telford considering it is a young town. Let\u2019s not forget Thomas Telford either, for whom the town was named. Thomas Telford was a Scottish engineer who was known for building roads and bridges. He came from very humble origins to stun Britain with his awesome roads\u2026 but we\u2019re guessing if you live in Telford you are sick of that story. Here are some of our other favourite famous folk from Telford:<\/p>\n