Shit Brook is a culverted small stream in Much Wenlock,

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to ...

, England.

History

The stream, which was named Shit Brook because it was the open sewer for the town, ran parallel with the road leading towards the Holy Trinity Church. In the 14th century it was culverted, its course now under Victoria Road, High Street, Back Lane, Bull Ring and along the north side of the Priory precinct. The diverted stream drained into the

River Severn , name_etymology = , image = SevernFromCastleCB.JPG , image_size = 288 , image_caption = The river seen from Shrewsbury Castle , map = RiverSevernMap.jpg , map_size = 288 , map_c ...

near Buildwas Abbey. When the stream was paved over to make a lane, people used it as a shortcut to get to the town's Holy Trinity Church. Use of the path eventually declined towards 1775 as a result of the

Inclosure Act 1773 The Inclosure Act 1773 (13 Geo 3. c. 81) (also known as the Enclosure Act 1773) is an Act of the Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain, passed during the reign of George III. The Act is still in force in the United Kingdom. It created a law ...

. In 1540, it was known as the "Schetebrok", which was noted by John Leland. In 1847, it was listed as "Sytche" on

Ordnance Survey Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of 1745. There was a ...

maps, which drew conclusions that it had some relation to a similarly named stream at

Burslem Burslem ( ) is one of the six towns that along with Hanley, Tunstall, Fenton, Longton and Stoke-upon-Trent form part of the city of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England. It is often referred to as the "mother town" of Stoke on Trent. ...

in Stoke-on-Trent. In the 1990s, there was a structural survey carried out on Shit Brook which discovered that the culvert was in poor condition as it had collapsed in places, which led to flooding of nearby properties. A programme to repair the culvert was proposed by

Shropshire County Council Shropshire County Council was the county council of the non-metropolitan county of Shropshire in England. History The Council came into its powers under the Local Government Act 1888 on 1 April 1889 and was known as Salop County Council from for ...

Archaeology Service to refurbish it. In 2013, it was listed as a location for new flood defences to be built in the United Kingdom. In 1994, Shit Brook was featured in an episode of

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

's archaeology programme '' Time Team''.

References

{{authority control Rivers of Shropshire Much Wenlock