History project for Shropshire gets a reboot
A stalled project to produce a definite history of Shropshire looks likely to be kickstarted after a gap of more than 10 years.
A public launch to revive the Victoria County History project is being planned for October. It comes after a new county committee was formed in May and those involved hope to produce future documents on Shrewsbury and Wem in the coming years.
The prestigious and authoritative Victoria County History aims to write the history of every parish and town in England.
In Shropshire the first volume was published as long ago as 1908, but there was no further work until 1961 and six further volumes appeared before progress slowed to a halt and the project has since been in a long-standing limbo.
Since 2002 there has been no active VCH office in the county, but the publication last year of a VCH volume on Shrewsbury, largely thanks to voluntary work by a number of contributors and helped by a grant from the Marc Fitch Fund, has led to an upsurge of interest and enthusiasm.
A meeting in May at Shropshire Archives was well attended and has led to the setting up of a new county committee to start moving things forward.
The committee has since met several times and has been devising a strategy to revive the project.
The relaunch will be held at the Guildhall in Shrewsbury, on October 31, starting at 2pm.
The afternoon will begin with Professor Richard Hoyle, director and general editor of the Victoria County History, outlining VCH Shropshire: Past, Present and Future.
Two lectures will follow, the first by Professor Keith Lilley of Queen's University Belfast, entitled The Forms and Formation of Medieval Towns of the Marches, and the second by Dr Barrie Trinder, called Shropshire Market Towns since 1660.
Tea, coffee and cake will be served in the interval. Attendance is free for this event, but booking is essential through info@victoriacountyhistory.ac.uk
It is hoped that a range of fundraising occasions will follow and there will be a second volume on Shrewsbury in late 2016 or 2017, a VCH short on Wem in late 2016, and the revival of work on the Bradford Hundred in the north east of the county to resume where the county-funded VCH staff left off a decade ago.
