Oswestry Town Trail - Bailey Street and Bailey Head

The shop fronts may have changed but Bailey Street is still a busy thoroughfare lined with small shops leading up to the market and Guildhall. Samuel Higham was a gunsmith and pistol maker working from Llwyds Mansion. In 1854 the business moved to No. 5, Bailey Street and a few years later, moved again to the shop next door. Samuel died in 1873, and the business was run by his son George and his widow. In 1881, George was living in Victoria Street, Oswestry. He was twenty five years old and married to twenty year old Sarah. They had a five month old son, also named George. George senior continued to run the business at No. 3 for many years and was still making guns and pistols in 1905.

The Highams must have owned Nos. 3 and 5, Bailey Street. In 1882, Mrs Higham sold the part of the frontages of both shops to the town corporation. These frontages projected into the street and the shop fronts were rebuilt in line with the other shops and the road was widened.

There was another gunsmith at No. 25. For many years this business was owned by the Stantons and passed down through the family. In 1851 eighty year old Robert Stanton ran the business in partnership with his son. Richard, then aged 44. Living with them were Robert’s grand daughter, aged 24 and a fifteen year old servant. When Richard Stanton died the business was sold, in 1872, to Henry Crutchloe. Five years later it was being run by his son John who was then forty four. Unlike the Highams, John Crutchloe lived as well as worked at No. 25. Living with him in 1881 were his wife Ellen and a sixteen year old servant girl. He did not stay there much longer for the following year the business had been taken over by John Griffiths Benbow who was still there in 1905. Whether John Crutchloe had died or simply moved on is not known at this time. In 1940, No. 25 was still a gunsmith’s now worked by J. Tucker.

The Three Tuns Inn, built in the C17th. was, a hundred years later, one of the principal inns of the town and very popular with the Welsh drapers. In 1881, Joseph van Veen was the publican and lived on the premises with his wife and five young children. He seems to have moved around quite a lot as his children, ranging in age from nine years to one month, were all born in different towns. Joseph and his family were soon on the move again as, shortly after the census was taken, Isaac Jones had become innkeeper of the Three Tuns. He only stayed for two years and the inn was run by Tom King. Shortly after Tom King had moved in the property was demolished to make way for an extension to the Cross Market and a new street. Yes, it was named New Street!

Many of the old shops in Bailey Street were demolished and rebuilt during the late 1880s and 1890s. Mrs. Sarah Christian purchased No. 21. Her husband, Richard, was a talented and knowledgeable jeweller and silversmith. The business became very successful and passed down through the family from father to son. In 2006 the family celebrated a hundred years as jewellers and silversmiths in the same shop where the business had started.

The Guildhall, on one side of Bailey Head, replaced an older building which was demolished in 1891. The new Guildhall, which was opened in November 1893, had offices, the council chamber, county court offices and a police station with cells on the ground floor. On the first floor were the courts, robbing rooms, grand jury room, a witness’s waiting room and a large reading room for the library which was on the top floor. The Guildhall is now home to Oswestry Archives housing an impressive collection of documents dating back to the C14th.

The Corn Market, or Powis Market as it is now known, is a modern structure built in the 1960s replacing an earlier market hall dating from 1869. This in its turn had replaced an earlier building. Oswestry market is one of the oldest in the county with acharter dating back to 1407. Markets are held here every Wednesday (and Saturday during the summer months). The Wednesday market spills out on the Horsemarket to the rear and also onto the square in front of the market.

The Red Lion public house dates back to the 1660s although, like the Eagle across the square, it has a C19th. frontage. From 1840 to 1843, the Welsh Congregationalists held services in a room over the kitchen on alternate Sundays.

The open ground on Bailey Head was once a place of punishment. The stocks were here, stored by the Red Lion when not in use. They were used to punish petty offenders such as drunks, tramps etc. The pillory, or whipping post was also here. Isaac Watkin cites one case in 1738, where Margaret Jones, convicted of felony, was publicly whipped ‘at the publick Whipping Post or Pillory there, giving her twelve lashes with the Common Whip used in such cases, till her body is bloody’. [1]

[1] WATKIN Isaac, Oswestry. 1920 p.308