There's Life in the Nag's Head, Shrewsbury

By Bernard O'Connor

The famous Nag's Head in Shrewsbury is a fine example of a late-Medieval coaching inn. It is visited and photographed by tourists and locals, but few know much about its history. Bernard O'Connor's latest book on Shropshire provides a selection of over 250 years of newspaper articles that detail the sales, auctions, meetings, political corruption, landlords, landladies, births, marriages, deaths, inquests - and much more - to reveal life in the Nag's Head.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9781447735229

Book preview

There’s Life in the

Nag’s Head, Shrewsbury

Bernard O’Connor

Copyright @ Bernard O’Connor 2023

Some parts of this book can be used provided due acknowledgement is given to the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4477-2227-4

Frontespiece: https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/local-hubs/shrewsbury/2021/12/07/heres-to-you-russell-landlord-retires-after-39-years/

Maps and photographs

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Extract from 1-inch Shropshire 1921

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Extract from 25-inch Shropshire XXXIV.10 1882

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Extract from 25-inch Shropshire XXXIV.11 1882

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Extract from 25-inch Shropshire XXXIV.11 1882

Photo of Shrewsbury, Nag's Head, Wyle Cop 1891

The Nag’s Head, Wyle Cop, Shrewsbury c.1891) (https://photos.francisfrith.com/frith/shrewsbury-nag-s-head-wyle-cop-1891_28910.jpg)

Wyle Cop in the 1920s. The shops may have changed, but the beauty of the buildings remains.

1920s photograph of Wyle Cop, Shrewsbury (https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/voices/opinions/phil-gillam/2018/08/31/phil-gillam-why-im-always-sloping-off-to-wyle-cop/)

Wyle Cop in October 1964 - if the under-road heating had been installed by then, it doesn't show

1960s photograph of Wyle Cop (https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/nostalgia/2018/02/03/sixties-shrewsbury-dug-a-hot-idea-to-beat-the-freeze/)

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Empty Wyle Cop – maybe Sunday morning in the 1950s? (https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/334181234820719078/)

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The Nag’s Head (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ commons/7/79/The_Nag%27s_Head_Inn_and_shops%2C_Wyle_Cop%2C_Shrewsbury_-_geograph.org.uk_-_120659.jpg)

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Recent photograph of the Nag’s Head

(Richard Law https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: Nag%27s _Head,_Shrewsbury.jpg)

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(https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=229347376089049&set=pb.100070413632287.-2207520000)

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(https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=213199931037127&set=pb.100070413632287.-2207520000.&type=3)

Introduction

The Nag’s Head (SJ  49391234), 22 Wyle Cop, Shrewsbury, is one of the town’s oldest pubs. According to Shropshire’s Historic Gateway, it is a Grade II Listed Building with parts dating back to the late 15th century. Their description states:

Timber frame painted over with plain tiled roof. 3 storeys, single-window range. Late C19 public house front to ground floor with 6-panelled door to left and 3-light window with carved spandrels to mullions and panelling below. Moulded brackets carry quatrefoil and dentilled frieze over bressumer to jettied upper floor which has continuous band of small-paned casement windows. Jettied second storey with horizontally sliding sash window. Rear wing is 2 storeys with gabled dormer. Plaster over timber-frame with brick infill to ground floor. Inserted doors to ground floor each side of central inserted window. Casement windows of 2 and 3 lights above. Square panelled framing also visible in gable wall adjoining timber-framed building to rear (building to rear of Nag's Head public house, qv). (Smith J T: Shrewsbury: Topography and Domestic Architecture to the mid C17: 1953) <2>

Front and side elevations recorded in March 1996 with later annotations in 1998. <6><7>

Restored in 1996. Frontage, certainly commercial, range to hall 10649 at the rear; probably contemporary - early 15th century? Cross references are to rear hall (10649); the town wall line bounding the rear of the property (62446); investigations upon it (60148,9) and the side property boundaries/ terrace walls, 60212, 60150. <8>

The Nag's Head itself appears to be part of the same building programme as the hall behind it (PRN 10649); the same felling-date was established for a corner post linking the two buildings. The street facing range has a deep front jetty and cusped windbraces in a side-purlin roof. Recent repair work revealed that the upper storey had panels with up-and-down cusped bracing. Photograph and elevations, photograph of crown-post roof.->

->The street-facing room of the third storey contains an C18 corner cupboard with scalloped shelves. A door was added later and is decorated with a depiction of what appears to be the god Neptune. Photograph. <9>

The Nag’s Head Hall, Wyle Cop, is situated at the rear of the public house and between the inner and outer town wall, is incomplete. The hall was demolished in the 1950s, leaving exposed the spere truss, the screens passage and the service end. The spere truss is of tripartite form but without continuous aisle-posts. It is richly decorated with cusped panels, brattishing and moulding, and it retains a crown-post roof truss in which there is six-way bracing. All the braces are cusped, two of the laterals down-swing to the tie in normal Salopian fashion, but a further pair up-swing to the collar. The crown-post is typical of the Shrewsbury style in being cruciform in plan, the limbs extending to straddle the tiebeam, thus effecting a strong joint and giving a decorative impression. The three service doorways have ogee-heads, and independent access to the gallery above the passage