Oswestry Town Trail - Leg Street and Salop Road

There seems to be some uncertainty about the origin of the name Leg Street. John Pryce Jones dismisses the suggestion that it may have been derived from the Isle of Man coat of arms. He suggests that a more probable explanation is that it is derived from the Old English word ‘leah’ signifying open land or woodlands and that Leg Street originally meant the street leading to open land. Isaac Watkin suggests that in some parish registers it appears as Blackgate Street.

The 1833 map of Oswestry shows Leg Street as an upside down Y shape – one arm leading to The Cross, one to Salop Road and the vertical to Beatrice Street. By 1900, the arm leading to The Cross had become Cross Street and Leg Street was the road leading from Salop Road to Beatrice Street.

The Cross Keys Inn. On the 1833 map this is shown as the whole block at the junction of the two arms of Leg Street. It was a popular coaching inn and a convenient place to change horses. One of the Shrewsbury to Holyhead coaches called in each morning at 10 a.m. and again at 3p.m. on its return to Shrewsbury. Another coach called twice a day at 8a.m. and 7p.m. In 1828, the Royal Mail coach called at the Cross Keys at 9.30 a.m. on its way from Holyhead to London via Shrewsbury, Birmingham and Coventry. The passengers were able to have a short rest and a meal while the horses were being changed.

The new railway system provided a faster and more convenient way of travelling and the coaching trade declined. The whole building was sold in the 1850s to George Lewis who had part of the building converted to offices and business premises and moved his printing and bookselling business there. That part of the property became known as The Library. George Lewis later became secretary and manager of the Cambrian Railway Company but retained an interest in the printing works. Thomas Owen joined the firm and later bought the business from Mr Lewis. It continued into the twentieth century under the name Thomas Owen and Sons. They published a monthly Advertising Circular. Thomas Owen also wrote his ‘Reminiscences of Oswestry Fifty Years Ago’ which was published in 1904. He died in 1916 at the age of seventy eight.

The Queens Hotel was another of Oswestry’s coaching inns, catering mainly for passengers to Newtown and Welshpool. Isaac Watkin gives the fares on the Royal Oak to Welshpool – a two hour journey – as six shillings inside the coach (30p. in today’s money) and three shillings and sixpence outside. As a comparison, a labourer working on an extension at Sweeney Hall earned 2s.6d. for six hours work. When John Lloyd became the proprietor in 1870 he had the building enlarged.

The building next door was owned by the Lacon family. They started their grocery and ironmongery business there in 1786. The family business was still there in 1941 just over one hundred and fifty years later. In 1881, William Henry Lacon is described in the census as an ironmonger with no mention of the grocery side of the business. He employed three men and six women. He was married to Mary, and living with them were three of their children – Helen 16, Philip 15, and ten year old Arthur. They employed a cook and a domestic servant. In 1886 William was appointed Mayor of Oswestry and in 1903 became a Justice of the Peace. He died in 1911 aged seventy nine. In 1941 the business was being run by another William Henry Lacon.

Oxford House, the adjoining property, was previously the Coach and Dogs P.H. but by 1877 had been converted to another printing works. The Albion Printing Works was owned by John Whitridge although in the 1881 census he is described only as a bookseller employing two men, three boys and two girls. John, age 38, and his wife, Mary, had two daughters, both toddlers, and employed sixteen year old Jane Williams as nursemaid.

One shopkeeper in Leg Street who achieved a certain notoriety was Aaron Lyons. He described himself as watchmaker, jeweller, silversmith and optician. Mr Lyons advertisement in William Cathrall’s History of Oswestry states that as well as ‘jewellery of his own and foreign manufacture’ he also supplied spectacles, eye preservers, and eyeglasses made on the premises from Brazilian pebbles and crystals. He claimed to be ‘able to suit, at first glance, the sight of any person, from ten to seventy, with spectacles or eyeglasses’. Business cannot have been doing too well for when a fire broke out at his premises in July, 1858, he was arrested and later sentenced to three years penal servitude for arson and attempting to defraud the insurance company. The Salopian Journal gives a full account of the trial, with detailed accounts of evidence from various witnesses, although much of this evidence appears to be circumstantial.

Isaac Watkin puts Aaron Lyons in Cross Street, but other sources, including Mr Lyons own advert, place him in Leg Street. The confusion may have arisen because part of Leg Street later became known as Cross Street.

The Black Gate, just below the Bear Inn, was another of the four gates in the old town walls. It is said that its name derived from the fact that prisoners were taken through it for execution outside the town walls. The Black Gate was removed in 1771, partly because it was in a very poor state of repair but also to allow easier access into the town by stagecoaches. At the same time, part of Leg Street, was replaced with a straighter section of road, again to make for easier access.

The Black Gate Public House, an old timber framed building, was originally a farmhouse situated just outside the Black Gate. It later became an inn and, over the years, seems to have alternated between being an inn or restaurant and coffee house.

On the site of the English Baptist Church, stood Blackgate Girls School which was demolished in 1881.The church was formally opened in March 1892 and a Sunday school added in 1909. The church, no longer used for worship is, in 2006, a fitness centre. The last service was held here in November, 1995.

Continuing down into Salop Road, we reach Holy Trinity Church, built in 1837 to ease overcrowding in the Parish Church of St. Oswald. The Vicarage was built in 1866 and its first occupant was Rev. Frederick Cashel. MA. vicar of Holy Trinity Church. He lived at the Vicarage until his death, at the age of sixty seven, in 1886, having retired a few years earlier.

The houses in Salop Road, once home to some of Oswestry’s more affluent townsfolk, have, for the most part, been converted into offices and small shops with some living accommodation above.

Park Issa was once home to the Kiffin family. The present building stands on the site of an earlier one, set in large grounds. Park Issa is now a well known veterinary practice.

Further down Salop Road, on the right hand side is the ‘new’ cemetery opened in 1862. The cemetery, set on a four acre site, cost £3,500 to set up and included a fine mortuary chapel. By 1879, a second chapel had been added and by 1941 the site had been extended to seven and a half acres.