Shelton is a suburb located in the west of the town of Shrewsbury in

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 England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, described by the

Pevsner Architectural Guides The Pevsner Architectural Guides are a series of guide books to the architecture of Great Britain and Ireland. Begun in the 1940s by the art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the 46 volumes of the original Buildings of England series were published b ...

as "Shrewsbury's principal

interwar In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the First World War to the beginning of the Second World War. The interwar period was relativel ...

suburb." It was once a village of its own, but the town of Shrewsbury has grown steadily in the area since the 1950s. It has a

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

parish church, Christ Church (built 1854) which serves a parish formally known as Shelton and Oxon.

History

Possible Roman Road

The 1861 six-inch OS map shows a footpath just south of the lunatic asylum as "site of Roman road". On later OS maps the marking was dropped from this location.

Domesday book

Shelton appears in the

Domesday book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

as ‘Saltone’, with 4 households.

The Shelton Oak

The Shelton Oak (see watercolour ) was a long lived oak tree which, by tradition, Owain Glyndŵr climbed to view the

Battle of Shrewsbury The Battle of Shrewsbury was a battle fought on 21 July 1403, waged between an army led by the Lancastrian King Henry IV and a rebel army led by Henry "Harry Hotspur" Percy from Northumberland. The battle, the first in which English archers ...

in 1403. An oak tree which died in the 1940s (see photograph ), and the remnants of which were removed for road widening in the 1950s, was said to be the Shelton Oak. In the 1880s an acorn from the Shelton Oak was planted in the Dingle in The Quarry, the main park in Shrewsbury.

Shropshire Council Shropshire Council is the local authority of Shropshire, in England, comprising the ceremonial county of Shropshire except Telford and Wrekin. It is a unitary authority, having the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council combi ...

is to plant an acorn from that tree in the Mytton Oak Remembrance Park. A young oak tree located by the side of the modern junction, where the footpath from the end of Merlin Road emerges onto the main road, has a plaque at its base which reads:

The Oak, Shelton (inn)

An inn called The Oak (see photograph) formerly stood between the Mount and Shelton Road where the two roads meet. It was constructed in 1939 and demolished 60 years later.Trinder, Barrie "Beyond the Bridges" There is now a monument at the junction where the two roads meet, with a relief featuring the story of the Shelton Oak.

Vicarage

The modern day pub called Oxon Priory, belonging to the 'Hungry Horse' chain, occupies the listed former vicarage for Oxon and Shelton parish.

Prince of Wales visits Rossall, 1806

On 9 September 1806 George, Prince of Wales stayed at Rossall just north of Shelton. The following morning he was attended by the mayor of Shrewsbury and others who conferred on His Royal Highness the freedom of the borough.The History and Antiquities of Shrewsbury: From Its First Foundation to the Present Time, comprising a Recital of Occurrences and Remarkable Events, for Above Twelve Hundred Years, Volume 1 : Thomas Phillips, James Bowen, Charles Hulbert editor (1837)
/ref>

Toll House

Following the Act of Union in 1801 there was a move to enable Irish MPs to make easier journeys to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

in London.

Thomas Telford Thomas Telford FRS, FRSE, (9 August 1757 – 2 September 1834) was a Scottish civil engineer. After establishing himself as an engineer of road and canal projects in Shropshire, he designed numerous infrastructure projects in his native Scot ...

was Director of the Holyhead Road Commission between 1815 and 1830 and made many improvements to the Holyhead Road. A

Toll house A tollhouse or toll house is a building with accommodation for a toll collector, beside a tollgate on a toll road, canal, or toll bridge. History Many tollhouses were built by turnpike trusts in England, Wales and Scotland during the 18th an ...

was built by Telford in 1829 on the Holyhead Road at Shelton. It was situated at the junction with Featherbed Lane. To allow for road widening in the early 1970s, it was dismantled and re-erected at

Blists Hill Victorian Town Blists Hill Victorian Town is an open-air museum built on a former industrial complex located in the Madeley area of Telford, Shropshire, England. The museum attempts to recreate the sights, sounds and smells of a Victorian Shropshire town ...

Bypass

In 1933 the (now "old") Shrewsbury bypass was opened with Shelton at its western end. The section from Shelton to Porthill island is called Shelton Road. 1992 saw the opening of today's A5 bypass further out from Shrewsbury.

Shelton Hospital

Shelton Hospital Shelton Hospital was a mental health facility in Shelton, Shropshire, England. The main building survives and it is a Grade II listed building. History The hospital, which was designed by George Gilbert Scott and William Bonython Moffatt using a ...

was a hospital specialising in mental health, located in Shelton. After services transferred to a modern facility known as the Redwoods Centre, it closed in 2012.

Severn Trent Water Site

Severn Trent Water Severn Trent plc is a water company based in Coventry, England. It supplies 4.6 million households and business across the Midlands and Wales. It is traded on the London Stock Exchange and a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. Severn Trent, the ...

has a major site on Welshpool Road in Shelton, consisting of offices and a water treatment works.

Cricket

Shelton has a cricket club whose ground is adjacent to the former Shelton Hospital (see above), with which the club has strong historic associations.Phil Gillam - Shelton Hospital shows how attitudes have changed
/ref> The team played in the

Shropshire Premier Cricket League The Shropshire Premier Cricket League (1970–2011) was the highest level club cricket competition in Shropshire. It was one step above the Shropshire Cricket League, and acted as a feeder league to the Birmingham and District Premier League, wh ...

until the league was wound up after the 2011 season. In 2012 Shelton played in the Premier Division of the newly formed Shropshire County Cricket League but were relegated to Division One at the end of that season. In 2015 Shelton finished second in Division One, gaining promotion to the Premier Division and ending a spell of three years outside the top division. However at the end of the 2016 season they finished bottom of the Premier Division and were relegated back to Division One for the 2017 season.Shrewsbury Chronicle p102, 20 September 2016

References

{{reflist Suburbs of Shrewsbury Populated places on the River Severn