Much Wenlock - History

History

The town grew around an abbey or monastery founded around 680 by Merewalh, a son of King Penda of Mercia. King Penda installed his daughter Milburga as abbess in 687. Milburga of Wenlock was credited with many miraculous works. The abbey flourished until around 874 when a Danish Viking attack occurred. In the 11th century another religious house was built on the same site by Leofric, Earl of Mercia and Countess Godiva his wife. In the 12th century this was replaced by a Cluniac priory, established by Roger de Montgomerie after the Norman Conquest, the ruins of which can still be seen and which is now in the hands of English Heritage. It prospered until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539.

Other architectural attractions include the 16th century Guildhall, many other historic buildings in the Early English style and an annual well dressing at St Milburga's Well on Barrow Street. The town was incorporated under the name of "Bailiff, Burgesses and Commonalty" by Edward IV in 1468 at the request of Sir John Wenlock, and "in consideration of the laudable services which the men of the town performed in assisting the king to gain possession of the crown," and the charter was confirmed in 1547 by Henry VIII and in 1631 by Charles I.

The town is known for Wenlock Olympian Games set up by Dr William Penny Brookes in 1850. In 1861 he was also instrumental in setting up the Shropshire Games and later in 1866, the National Olympian Games. Dr Brookes is credited as a founding father of the Modern Olympic Games, and meetings between him and Baron Pierre de Coubertin took place at the Raven Hotel (as did the feast which concluded each year’s Olympian Games). Today in the Raven Hotel are displayed many artefacts from those early years, including original letters from de Coubertin to Brookes. The Wenlock Olympian Games, a four-day event during the second weekend in July, are still contested in the town annually. The town's secondary school is named after Brookes.

On 30 May 2012, the Olympic flame of the London 2012 Summer Games, was paraded through Much Wenlock to acknowledge the founding footsteps of Brookes. The Olympic mascot for London 2012 is named Wenlock.

A borough of Wenlock existed until 1966 which, at its height, was the largest borough in England outside London and encompassed several of the towns that now constitute Telford. The borough had unusual boundaries, covering Much Wenlock itself, but also Little Wenlock, Broseley and Ironbridge. 1966 saw the core Wenlock parts become part of the Bridgnorth Rural District, with other parts also going to Dawley Urban District and to Wellington Rural District.

On 7 April 2011 Much Wenlock was announced by Decentralisation Minister Greg Clark as one of the first seventeen communities to test neighbourhood planning, a key feature of the Localism Bill. The Much Wenlock Neighbourhood Plan was launched on 22 November 2011.

Much Wenlock was the location for the third episode of the first series of the archaeology television programme Time Team in 1994.