The Vanes of Shrewsbury

By David Harley

My uncle Eddie Parker, though he worked in engineering for most of his life, was a talented amateur artist with a keen interest in Shropshire history. After his death, his daughter Eve and I agreed to publish a book featuring his drawings of old Shrewsbury buildings, with historical background and some photographs, where appropriate, of the same sites as they are today. The main difference between this edition and the first edition is that the photographs are now in colour.
This is very different to my previous technical books. The historical span of the topics covered ranges from Saxon times to the 21st century, with the dramatis personae including saints and kings, poets and playwrights, patriots and rebels. The settings ranging from medievel churches to battlefields, from pubs to castles, from abbeys to museums, from Bronze Age circles to fairs and markets. It even includes short diversions into etymology and blockchain technology.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Harley
• Release date: Aug 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223504092

David Harley

David and Rosemary Harley have served together as missionaries in Europe, Africa and Asia. After ministering in an English parish, they worked among Falasha Jews, one of the poorest and most disadvantaged communities in Africa. On return to the UK, they spent fifteen years at All Nations Christian College, UK, where David served as principal for eight years. This was followed by several years with Crosslinks and the World Evangelical Fellowship, serving as mission training consultants. David was subsequently invited to become the General Director of OMF International, which entailed not only leading one of the largest mission agencies in the world, but also travelling extensively throughout East and South East Asia. Together they have amassed a huge amount of experience of how to do mission well and encourage others to do it well too.

Book preview

The Vanes of Shrewsbury

By David Harley

This is an early watercolour by Eddie Parker, now in the possession of his daughter Margaret. I don't know the location of this street, but it certainly fits in with the other illustrations here.

Eddie Parker’s Shrewsbury Drawings

Whealalicemusic.wordpress.com

Copyright

The Vanes of Shrewsbury © 2022 David Harley and Eve Parry

Illustrations by Eddie Parker © Eve Parry

Text and other illustrations © David Harley

The moral right of David Harley and Eve Parry to be identified as joint copyright holders of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of the copyright holders.

FIRST EDITION

Table of Contents

Copyright

Table of Contents

Introduction

Bear Steps Cottages

Bear Steps

St. Alkmund’s

*Old St. Chad’s

‘New’ St. Chad’s

Sanctuary Window

The Abbot’s House

Rowley’s House

New  Ship Inn

Mardol

Quantum Leap

Frankwell

House in Frankwell

String of Horses

Wyle Cop

Town Walls

Abbey Foregate

The Abbey

Refectory Pulpit

The Abbey

The Dun Cow

The Dun Cow – The Legend

Etymology and History

Looking West

Market Square

Della Porta’s

The Market Hall

By Shrewsbury Clock

High Street

Royal Insurance Building

Gateway House

St. Nicholas Chapel

Gateway House Today

Castle Gates House

Shrewsbury Castle

End Notes

Eddie & Connie Parker

Variant Spellings of St. Alkmund’s

NFT (Non-Fungible token)

A Shrewsbury Timeline

The Cover Illustration

The Next Book

Shropshire Laddishness

About David Harley

Other Books By David Harley

Introduction

A representation of part of Shrewsbury's skyline at night, featuring the spires of Saint Mary's and Saint Alkmund's.

This book is by no means only about the churches of Shrewsbury, and even less the gleaming weather vanes (A Shropshire Lad XXVIII: A.E. Housman). Indeed, it doesn’t even cover all Shrewsbury’s interesting churches.

Still, the visual impact of the town’s churches on the ‘steepled crest’ of the town centre is undeniable. St. Mary’s and especially St. Alkmund’s, the two in the mini-illustration above, do feature in the book (especially St. Alkmund’s). Moreover, Housman plays a large part in the book project from which this book is an offshoot. And the only other references to Shrewsbury in A Shropshire Lad that I remember are in IX – They hang us now in Shrewsbury jail – which isn’t really the overall mood I wanted to establish.

However, there’s a lot more about churches in this book than there is about computers, so, since most of the (few) people who are aware of me as an author (or indeed at all) will associate me with books about IT security, perhaps I should tell you a bit about how we got here.

My uncle William Edward Parker – known to nearly everyone as Eddie – was a talented amateur artist. He and his wife Constance – Connie – retired to Western Australia, where my cousin Eve and her husband Jim already lived. My mother (Eddie’s sister Gwen), who still lived in Shropshire, would send him copies of local newspapers and even, from time to time, history books relating to Shropshire, and he would use these as the basis for some of his artwork. After his death, Eve and I discussed putting together a book based on some of his drawings, adding historical background and some photographs relating to the same scenes as they look now. However, as I was still working at that time, the project gradually slid out of sight, so far behind the back burner it disappeared out through