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Shrewsbury’s alms houses – helping those in need.
ROBERT BULLARD takes a look at the town’s almshouses

How many almshouses are there in Shrewsbury – still operating ones, that is? More than you might think, probably. But to give you time to guess, let me start with a bit of background and history.

Something has always appealed to me about almshouses. They look so attractive. A group of houses, all of one style, and usually - thanks to their endowment - still in good condition. Plus of course they fulfilled an important job in providing housing for those in need.

But it seems their original role was wider than just homes for the poor and elderly. According to my encyclopaedia, when they flourished in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries ‘they were used as a dumping ground for the mentally ill, the epileptic, the feeble-minded, the blind, the deaf and dumb, the crippled, the tuberculous, the destitute aged, homeless unemployed, vagrants, petty criminals, prostitutes, unmarried mothers, and abandoned and neglected children.’

Can they ever really have had the space and skills to look after all of these people?! Probably not. Indeed, by the turn of the century they were being criticised for failing to provide the treatment needed for their various residents, as well as for their generally poor standards of care and sanitation.

Things got better in the twentieth century when some people were moved out into state funded institutions and pensions were introduced for the elderly. Little wonder therefore that the number of people in them peaked in the 1930s, at 135,000, fell to half this by the 1950s, and has since halved again to around 36,000 today.

Now back to Shrewsbury. If you haven’t guessed it already, at one time or another there have been five almshouses in the town, but which never accommodated more than 60 people. They are: St Chad’s (now pulled down), the Draper’s Company, St Giles’s Church, Holy Cross and Millington’s Hospital. More about the ‘hospital’ bit later.

St Chads and The Draper Company

Inevitably rather little is known about the earliest almshouses in the town, which were those of St Chad’s, which provided accommodation for 13 single people. Built in 1409 they used to stand on the south side of the cemetery, projecting into Belmont, but which were pulled down sometime between 1808-1840. (The earliest in the country were founded by King Athelstan in York in the 10th century, and the oldest ones still operating are thought to be the Hospital of St. Oswald, Worcester, that were founded around 990)

Second on our list, and operating about the same time, were those run by the Shrewsbury Draper’s Company, that date back to 1461. They used to stand next to the St Mary’s Churchyard, opposite the main post office. Indeed, that little stretch of road was originally part of Dogpole, but then became known as St Mary’s Almshouse Street. Then in 1825, at a cost of £2750, the almshouses were moved to the opposite side of the street, when they provided 18 inhabitants with two rooms each. That’s also when the street was given today’s name, St Mary’s Street. No, the houses aren’t there now. In 1964 they were pulled down and replaced by the ones still on Salters Lane, off Longden Coleham.

St Giles and The Holy Cross

Third on the list are those of St Giles’s Church on Wenlock Road, although their start date seems to be a little confusing. The church, being located outside the town walls, was once thought to have served the leper colony. Indeed it was known as ‘the leper church’, and it originally a ‘hospital’, where the people who were looked after by the monks from the abbey, and then almshouses.

Now, ‘hospital’ at this time meant a place providing shelter, care or education for orphaned children, old people or the homeless - and some of our almshouses still reflect this meaning.

I haven’t discovered many details about who the benefactor to the St Giles almshouses was, but possibly someone in the Prynce family, who were major contributors to Shrewsbury abbey. Anyway, there are still almshouses for four people next to St Giles today (that are administered by the Draper Company), in buildings that look like they date from the 60s or 70s.

The last two on our list are 150 and 250 years old, and the finest to look at. The Holy Cross almshouses – also known as Holy Cross Houses or the Hospital of the Holy Cross – are set back off the slip road behind the abbey, and were built in 1853 out of a bequest from Reverend William Gorsuch Rowland.

The Reverend was curate of St Giles Church for 32 years and vicar of St Mary’s from 1827. But this was no poor Reverend, because, as well as the almshouses, his family later gave money towards the stained glass windows in St Mary’s. He died in 1851, aged 81, and there is a monument to his relatives in St Giles Church, where his grandfather, William Gorsuch, had been vicar from 1750-82.

When they were built the Holy Cross almshouses were to provide accommodation for five single ladies over the age of 55 that were in need, of good repute, of a protestant faith, and were born in the parishes of St Mary’s or Holy Cross & St Giles – or had been living there for five years. And that’s pretty much what they do today.

Millington’s Hospital

Fifth, last, grandest and also still standing is Millington’s Hospital, in Frankwell – but not a hospital in today’s meaning. These are named after James Millington, who was a wealthy Shrewsbury draper. We know the most about these, for many of their records are still in Shropshire Archives, and we even know that their builders were two local tradesmen, Edward Massey, a carpenter, and Richard Scoltock, a bricklayer.

When James died in 1738 he left a long and detailed 19-page will. In it, besides money for his relatives and servants (he had no children), he left a bequest for the purchase of ‘sufficient grounds to build a hospital with 12 dwellings and a common kitchen for entertaining and providing for 12 poor housekeepers of Frankwell who are single and decayed and have lived good reputation.’ He also instructed the trustees to make ‘strict enquiry into the religion and morals of persons to be chosen.’

‘It took ten years to unravel the will and buy the land .. and by August 1749 the place was functional, ’ writes George Alcock, one of the current residents and a keen amateur historian who has recently been writing a history of the hospital. He continues, ‘the hospitalliers were each given two coats or gowns, three tons of coal and ten guineas yearly, and two loaves of bread weekly.’

George Alcock is a typical resident. He was born in Severn Street, Castlefields, in 1924, and has spent much of his life in Shrewsbury. He worked for 24 on the railways and then and then 20 years with Rolls Royce, in Harlescott. Now aged 81, he and his wife moved to Millington’s Hospital 11 years ago. “There is nowhere else that anyone could pay me to be,” he says.

Richard Millington was a rich man, and some readers may have encountered him and his legacies in other contexts. He also left money for the distribution of penny loaves to housekeepers in Frankwell; 1250 acres of land in Kinnerley, Shropshire, and Llanvairwaterdine, Radnorshire; money for the formation of what became St George’s School, off Frankwell roundabout (20 boys and 20 girls were educated there until it closed in 1925); and an exhibition worth £50-£60pa to any boy from Frankwell or St Chads, educated at Shrewsbury School, who went on to Cambridge.

Benefits

As well as providing accommodation for their residents, most almshouses also provided them with clothing, coal and an allowance. Without having access to the actual accounts it is not clear exactly how much was received. So, treating the figures with some caution it seems that, in the 1730s, those at Millington Hospital got £13 pa [£1650 today]. One hundred years later, when the new Drapers almshouses were built, their occupants were received £13 pa [£700 today]. And in the 1850s the ladies at Holy Cross got an annual allowance of £10pa [£770 today].

There were of course lots of other establishments that provided help and accommodation to people in need – more about them in another issue – but let me know if I have missed any other almshouses in the town out, or you can shed any further light on any of these.

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