Shropshire Archives is located in

Shrewsbury Shrewsbury ( , ) is a market town and civil parish in Shropshire (district), Shropshire, England. It is sited on the River Severn, northwest of Wolverhampton, west of Telford, southeast of Wrexham and north of Hereford. At the 2021 United ...

, England, and is the archives and local studies service for the historic county of

Shropshire Shropshire (; abbreviated SalopAlso used officially as the name of the county from 1974–1980. The demonym for inhabitants of the county "Salopian" derives from this name.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West M ...

, which includes the borough of

Telford and Wrekin Telford and Wrekin is a Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough and unitary authority in Shropshire, England. In 1974, a non-metropolitan district of Shropshire was created called the Wrekin, named after The Wrekin, a prominent hill to the ...

. It preserves and makes accessible documents, books, maps, photographs, plans and drawings relating to Shropshire and its people dating from the early 12th to the 21st century. Shropshire Archives is funded by

Shropshire Council Shropshire Council, known between 1980 and 2009 as Shropshire County Council and prior to 1980 as Salop County Council, is the Local government in England, local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Shropshire (district), Shropshire in t ...

and

Borough Council and is supported by an active friends organisation - the Friends of Shropshire Archives. The service has attracted external funding from bodies such as the

Heritage Lottery Fund The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom. History The fund's predecessor bodies were ...

and the

Arts Council An arts council is a government or private non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the arts; mainly by funding local artists, awarding prizes, and organizing arts events. They often operate at arms-length from the government to prevent pol ...

History

In 1995 the County Record Office and Local Studies Library were brought together in a purpose built building just off Castle Gates in

town centre. From 1995 to 2003, the building was known as the Shropshire Records and Research Centre. After consultation, in 2003 the name was changed to "Shropshire Archives – gateway to the history of Shropshire and Telford". Outside the building, in the courtyard, is a

mosaic A mosaic () is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/Mortar (masonry), mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and ...

showing the historic extent of Shropshire with a leopard and the county motto "" / "May Shropshire Flourish". The area where the building now stands was formerly "Blower's Repository" (for furniture) and is located just below the main Shrewsbury Library building. Steps lead down from the courtyard to the town's bus station further down the hill

In 2008 a plaque was unveiled at the archive to commemorate the 725th anniversary of the execution at Shrewsbury of the last native prince of Wales, .

Material held

Records held at Shropshire Archives include parish registers for Shropshire, local government records for the county, school records for the county, records of the boroughs of

Bridgnorth Bridgnorth is a market town and civil parish in Shropshire, England. The River Severn splits it into High Town and Low Town, the upper town on the right bank and the lower on the left bank of the River Severn. The population at the United Kingd ...

Ludlow Ludlow ( ) is a market town and civil parish in Shropshire (district), Shropshire, England. It is located south of Shrewsbury and north of Hereford, on the A49 road (Great Britain), A49 road which bypasses the town. The town is near the conf ...

and

Much Wenlock Much Wenlock is a market town and Civil parishes in England, parish in Shropshire, England; it is situated on the A458 road between Shrewsbury and Bridgnorth. Nearby, to the north-east, is the Ironbridge Gorge and Telford. The civil parish incl ...

, court records including

quarter sessions The courts of quarter sessions or quarter sessions were local courts that were traditionally held at four set times each year in the Kingdom of England from 1388; they were extended to Wales following the Laws in Wales Act 1535. Scotland establ ...

and coroner's records and some records of the

King's Shropshire Light Infantry The King's Shropshire Light Infantry (KSLI) was a light infantry regiment of the British Army, formed in the Childers Reforms of 1881, but with antecedents dating back to 1755. It served in the Second Boer War, World War I, World War II and Korea ...

. The service also collects maps, newspapers and photographs, as well as the county's largest collection of books, pamphlets and periodicals about Shropshire. Also available for research are

microfiche A microform is a scaled-down reproduction of a document, typically either photographic film or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original d ...

copies of census returns for Shropshire and microfiche copies of the GRO index (an index of the

General Register Office General Register Office or General Registry Office (GRO) is the name given to the civil registry in the United Kingdom, many other Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth nations and Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The GRO is the government agency r ...

's birth, marriage and death certificates). The service also holds the archives of many of the great estates in Shropshire including the Hill family of Attingham Park and Hawkstone Park, and the

Duke of Sutherland Duke of Sutherland is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom which was created by William IV in 1833 for George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Marquess of Stafford. A series of marriages to heiresses by members of the Leveson-Gower family made ...

's Lilleshall estates. The service has an online catalogue containing over 260,000 entries.

References

External links

Shropshire Archives

Volunteering for Shropshire's Heritage
{{Authority control Archives in Shropshire Organizations established in 1995 County record offices in England