Kingsland is a

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...

of the town

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 ...

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 ...

in the West Midlands of

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. It lies adjacent to the town centre of

across the

River Severn The River Severn (, ), at long, is the longest river in Great Britain. It is also the river with the most voluminous flow of water by far in all of England and Wales, with an average flow rate of at Apperley, Gloucestershire. It rises in t ...

by the Kingsland Bridge, built 1881. The Kingsland fields from the Middle Ages were a fairground to where the trade guilds of Shrewsbury used to parade, each guild having an arbour there, on the Monday after the feast of Corpus Christi, which became known as the Shrewsbury Show. Thomas Anderson, a soldier in the Dragoons was executed, as a deserter and Jacobite sympathizer, near the Butchers' Arbour on Kingsland, on 11 December 1752. He was the last English martyr for the Stuart cause.Thomas Phillips, James Bowen, Charles Hulbert,(1837) ''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.p. 256 Horse racing used to be held on Kingsland's common land, otherwise used for grazing, until crowding led to the creation of a race course at Bicton Heath in 1729. The first recorded cricket match in Shropshire was played on Kingsland, by a Shrewsbury Cricket Society, in August 1794.Published under Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians. From Introduction. In the early 19th century the Shrewsbury Show was thought to be in decline but it revived after the advent of rail transport to the town. However the disorder and growing size of the crowds caused a petition for its eventual abolition in 1875. This measure was a precondition to the residential development of the area for homes of the wealthy, which grew after

Shrewsbury School Shrewsbury School is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in Shrewsbury. Founded in 1552 by Edward VI by royal charter, to replace the town's Saxon collegiate foundations which were disestablished in the sixteenth century, Shrewsb ...

moved there. For the building of the houses, brickyards were set up at Copthorne which were linked to Kingsland by a tramline running along the line of Porthill Drive, Porthill Road, Roman Road and Kennedy Road. The campus of

occupies some of the land overlooking the River Severn. The main building was originally built in the 18th century as a

foundling hospital The Foundling Hospital (formally the Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Young Children) was a children's home in London, England, founded in 1739 by the philanthropy, philanthropic Captain (nautical), sea captain ...

, and was later a

workhouse In Britain and Ireland, a workhouse (, lit. "poor-house") was a total institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. In Scotland, they were usually known as Scottish poorhouse, poorh ...

for Shrewsbury before the School moved into it from the town centre in 1882. One of the former Victorian mansions, Kingsland Grange, became the preparatory school today (2015) called Shrewsbury High Prep School.

References

Populated places on the River Severn Suburbs of Shrewsbury {{Shropshire-geo-stub