Wem, Shropshire

Description
Wem, a small market-town, the head of a poor-law union, petty sessional division, and county court district, and a parish in Salop. The town stands on the river Roden, 10 miles N of Shrewsbury, 18 E of Oswestry, and 174 by railway from London. It has a station on the Shrewsbury and Crewe branch of the L. & N.W.R., and a post, money order, and telegraph office under Shrewsbury. Wem belonged at Domesday to W. Pandulph, passed to the Howards, the Wycherleys, and Judge Jeffreys; gave to Jeffreys in 1685 the title of Baron, declared for the Parliament at the outbreak of the Civil Wars of Charles I., sustained and repelled in 1643 an attack by a party of the royal troops, suffered devastation by fire in 1677 with the loss of £23,000 worth of property, and numbers among its natives Lord Mayor Adams who died in 1667, and Wycherley the dramatist A quiet little town, it comprises one principal street and several cross streets and lanes. It carries on malting and leather manufacture, and has a tannery and corn-mills. The town-hall is a plain brick edifice rebuilt in 1848, and includes an assembly-room. There are two banks, a police station, a workhouse, and a working-men's club. The grammar school was founded and endowed in 1650 by Sir Thomas Adams, who was lord mayor of London in 1645, and accompanied General Monk to Breda to congratulate Charles II. on his restoration. The church is a handsome edifice with a tower 70 feet high; it was rebuilt in 1679 after the fire, and was restored and enlarged in 1886. There are Baptist, Congregational, Primitive Methodist, and Catholic Apostolic chapels, and two cemeteries. Markets are held on Thursdays, and fairs on alternate Mondays. The parish contains the townships of Aston, Cotton, Edstaston, Newtown, Northwood, Wolverley, Lacon, Horton, Sleap, Lowe and Ditches, and Tilley and Trench. Acreage, 13,898; population of the civil parish, 8796; of the ecclesiastical, 2724. For parish council purposes it is divided into three wards-Wem sending ten members to the council, Edstaston three, and Newtown two. Edstaston with Cotton, and Newtown with Wolverley and Northwood, form separate ecclesiastical parishes. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Lichfield; net value, £851.