The Corn Exchange is a commercial building in the High Street in

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 ...

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 ...

, England. The structure, which is currently used as a library, is a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

History

Memorial to William Penny Brooks - geograph

In the mid-19th century, the educationalist,

William Penny Brookes William Penny Brookes (13 August 1809 – 11 December 1895) was an English surgeon, magistrate, botanist, and educationalist especially known for founding the Wenlock Olympian Games, inspiring the modern Olympic Games, and for his promotion of ...

, launched an initiative to commission a combined

corn exchange A corn exchange is a building where merchants trade grains. The word "corn" in British English denotes all cereal grains, such as wheat and barley; in the United States these buildings were called grain exchanges. Such trade was common in towns ...

and agricultural library, which would be financed by

public subscription Subscription refers to the process of investors signing up and committing to invest in a financial instrument, before the actual closing of the purchase. The term comes from the Latin word ''subscribere''. Historical Praenumeration An early form ...

and would not only protect market traders from inclement weather, but also provide a forum for the education of farmers and their labourers. The new building was designed by Samuel Pountney Smith in the

neoclassical style Neoclassicism, also spelled Neo-classicism, emerged as a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassici ...

, built in

rubble masonry Rubble masonry or rubble stone is rough, uneven building stone not laid in regular courses. It may fill the core of a wall which is faced with unit masonry such as brick or ashlar. Some medieval cathedral walls have outer shells of ashlar wi ...

and was completed in 1852. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of four bays facing onto the High Street. On the ground floor, there was a

loggia In architecture, a loggia ( , usually , ) is a covered exterior Long gallery, gallery or corridor, often on an upper level, sometimes on the ground level of a building. The corridor is open to the elements because its outer wall is only parti ...

formed by four large arches, while, on the first floor, there were four

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History ...

s with

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; , also called an epistyle; ) is the lintel or beam, typically made of wood or stone, that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can also apply to all sides, including the vertical members, ...

s. There were

quoin Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th-century encyclopedia, ...

s at the corners and, at roof level, there was a

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...

. A

cartouche upalt=A stone face carved with coloured hieroglyphics. Two cartouches - ovoid shapes with hieroglyphics inside - are visible at the bottom., Birth and throne cartouches of Pharaoh KV17.html" ;"title="Seti I, from KV17">Seti I, from KV17 at the ...

, which was inscribed with the date of construction and encircled by the words "Corn Exchange and Agricultural Library", was installed on the front of the building. Internally, the principal rooms were the trading area on the ground floor and a library, a reading room and a museum on the first floor. Brookes used the room on the first floor to accommodate the books of a lending library, which he had recently established and whose members, he had named as the "Wenlock Agricultural Reading Society". Following Brookes's death in 1895, a plaque to commemorate his life was installed on the front of the building, just below the cartouche, in 1897. The use of the building as a corn exchange declined significantly in the wake of the Great Depression of British Agriculture in the late 19th century. The Wenlock Agricultural Reading Society also ceased operating around the turn of the century and Much Wenlock Rural Borough Council acquired all its assets including the corn exchange, the remaining library books and the sociey's archives. The County Library moved into the first floor of the building in 1962, and, following local government reorganisation in 1974, Much Wenlock Town Council established its offices there as well.

Notes

References

{{reflist Commercial buildings completed in 1852 Buildings and structures in Much Wenlock Grade II listed buildings in Shropshire

History

See also

Notes

References