Whitchurch Town Trail: The Bull Ring

According to TC Duggan:

Undoubtedly the place used for the baiting of bulls, once a great national sport in the country. The bull was fastened by a rope 15 feet long attached to the root of its horns and then to an iron ring sunk into a large stone or block of wood. The object was to find whose mastiff or bull-dog had the most courage and was the most cunning. The last Bull-bait in Whitchurch was in 1802.

History of Whitchurch, Shropshire (1935)

This triangular area is really the heart of Whitchurch, where High Street, Green End and Watergate meet. It is the site of the town’s original market place. The machinery for the weighbridge was here in Wycherley’s saddlers shop, where loads of corn, coal and other loose commodities were weighed, and carters received a ticket certifying the weight of their load. The JB Joyce cast iron pillar clock was erected in 1994 when the pedestrianised Bull Ring concluded the town’s street renewal scheme.

Shops and Trades

In this very small area we find reference in the trade directories to:

Apothecaries:
Richard Bulkeley, 1722-29
G Tyler, 1759

Drapers:
Will and Henry Bowen, c1913-1970

Shoemakers:
J Done, c1875-1888
G & W Morton, c1900
Dicks Cash Stores (‘The Pioneers of the British Shoe Trade’), 1913-16

Saddler:
G Wycherley, 1873

Pubs Past and Present

The Star: First directory mention 1797 when occupied by Will Cartwright. Accommodation in 1896 shown as 8 bedrooms for 16 lodgers with stabling for 5 horses (night) and 14 (day). Still flourishing today. (See note below about its probable links to Whitchurch Castle)

Sign of the White Lion/The Bull-Ring Vaults:
‘One of the four chief Posting and Commercial Inns of the 18th and 19th centuries, first known as ‘the White Lyon’. Demolished in 1958 and replaced by today’s Lloyds Bank.

First surrender dated 1731. An Auction report of 1749 included ‘a large accustomed Inn, known as ‘The White Lyon’ . . . situated in the most Public part of the town, which is the Great Coach-road and thoroughfare between London and Ireland.’ More than one of its early 19th century licensees went bankrupt. During the 1820s and 1830s the stage coaches ‘Royal Mail’ and ‘Hero’ called here daily from Shrewsbury, taking passengers on to Chester.

It was certainly known as a ‘Wine and Spirit Vaults’ by 1868, and in 1896 had stabling for 20 horses (night) and 40 (day). It continued functioning as a pub through the 20th century until its demolition.


The Star Hotel and Whitchurch Castle

Discussion of the Castle’s exact location continues, but references to a gatehouse, as well as the existence of a drawing captioned ‘Whitchurch Castle’, may throw more light on the position of the outer bailey boundary wall.

Madge Moran (Vernacular Buildings of Whitchurch and Area, pp. 7-10) examines the different shreds of evidence including two copyhold surrenders dated 1726 and 1772, both referring to a Gatehouse, most likely located where Mill Street, Castle Hill, Bull Ring and Watergate all meet.

The 1726 surrender identifies a distance of 41 feet between two properties involved. The frontage of The Star Hotel (coincidentally?) ‘measures exactly 41 feet’. Examination of The Star’s cellar shows the walls on the east and the west sides to be blocks of dressed sandstone rather than brick. There is also the suggestion of a blocked former arch. Mrs Moran comments: ‘The possibility remains that perhaps the gatehouse was contained within the western half of what is now the Star Hotel and that the stonework in the cellar represents the tangible remains of it.’

The course of the Staggs Brook from Blakemere (largely culverted through Whitchurch and through The Star’s cellar) means that this remnant could ‘represent Whitchurch’s original Watergate’.

Listed Buildings

South-east side: Numbers 2 and 4

Number 2 (formerly Number 2, Green End)
An early 19th century 3-storeyed red brick house, since a restaurant, bookmakers and currently apparently not in use at ground level. Included in English Heritage listings only for its value as one of a group of buildings at this location.

Number 4 (formerly Number 4, Green End)
When listed in 1951, previously shown as ‘Premises occupied by Boots’. Longcross House is a 4-storeyed red brick house, now a shop at ground level with modern plate glass frontage, built in early 18th century. A photograph taken c1900, shown in Whitchurch Remembered (1980), illustration number 32, shows the early 18th century wooden cross windows still in place.